


Hearth and Home

by thegraytigress



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Thor (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:30:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: Whenever Steve's hurt, Thor comes to him.Or five times Thor takes care of Steve and the one time Steve takes care of him.





	Hearth and Home

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ , _Thor_ , and _Captain America_ are the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** M (for language, violence, adult situations)
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thought I'd try my hand at Steve/Thor. This is 100% self-indulgent Thundershield hurt/comfort. Like, OMG, so much hurt/comfort. The first four sections you can read as genfic if you so desire, but things go decidedly shippy towards the end of the fic. Thanks to junker5 for beta-reading and cheerleading, as always! Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

_Relinquish_

Steve misses home.

He does find it to be a tad ironic, as he limps slowly and carefully up the steps to his third-floor apartment, that he still is home in a way.  This apartment SHIELD gave him in Brooklyn isn’t too far from where his old tenement building was, the one where he grew up with his mother.  That building’s not there anymore; it was torn down in the 1970s and replaced with a bunch of luxury apartments.  Erased from existence so its space could be filled with something bigger and better.

That’s how life feels nowadays.  Bigger for certain.  Steve’s been told it’s better, and he usually agrees with a smile that no one notices is strained.  Secretly, though, he’s not sure.  Over the last six months since he’s woken up in the future, he’s felt so disconnected and dissociated.  His therapist (she’s a sweet lady, but he gets the impression that she doesn’t quite know what to do with him) tells him it’s natural, that feeling detached from this new world is a logical result of his displacement from his old time and life.

 _Natural_.  There’s nothing natural about any of this. It’s been one slow, difficult step after another, toward what he’s not sure.

And this is no different, though he’s pretty sure what lies at the end of the hall.  His apartment, empty and cold and quiet.  Steve sighs as he stands there at the top of the stairs and stares down the darkened corridor.  It’s late, and he hurts badly.  He could have – _should_ have – stayed at the Tower.  He knows what the rest of the Avengers do after a battle like today, after the smoke has cleared and the threat is vanquished and the civilians are safe.  After the cleanup is underway and SHIELD has been debriefed and everyone is coming down from the adrenaline and violence of the fight.  They crash, literally and figuratively, at Stark Tower.  Like that first time after the Battle of New York, the shawarma place Steve hardly remembers because he was half asleep at the time and nursing a multitude of wounds…

The team’s fallen into crashing _together._ They still may not know each other all that well, and they may not always get along, but this has come so easily to them.   They patch themselves up and gather in the common room and eat egregious amounts of take-out.  They collapse on the couches and watch movies and chatter about inane things, things Steve can’t pretend to understand.  It’s not the technology so much; that he grasped in no time at all, helped by his own smarts and the serum enhancing his memory and his capacity to learn.  Even without that barrier, though, he feels like he can’t keep up.  It’s _knowing_ things, things beyond the crash course in post-World War II history SHIELD gave him.  It’s tracking Stark’s embellished vernacular that’s full of pop culture references and understanding the political climate that birthed Russian spies like Romanoff and comprehending the advances in science that fuel Banner’s research interests and _getting_ the jokes Barton slings left and right.  He can’t do that, not with any sort of confidence or aplomb, which makes that detached, dissociated feeling worse.

And with that comes a whole slew of things he’d rather not think about and rather not feel.  Grief and anger and frustration.  Loneliness.  Despair and rage.  His therapist also tells him it’s not healthy to repress those emotions, that bottling them up will eventually harm him more than help him.  Maybe she’s right, but he was raised not to cry and not to be a burden and not to bleed on anyone.  Perhaps nowadays there’s a great deal more concern and sympathy for a man’s inner hurts, but he’s not the sort to go looking for it, even if it’s socially acceptable and even if he should.

Therefore, these team-bonding (Steve supposes that’s what they are, in effect, though labelling them that only makes his guilt worse) become an exercise in donning a fake smile, pretending like he’s following along and enjoying himself, and longing for some sense of belonging.  The others don’t seem to notice how hard it is for him to be there, or if they do they do a great job at not showing it so things aren’t so awkwardly obvious.  Stark and Banner.  Barton and Romanoff.  There’s this simple, unspoken expectation that Steve participate.  They’ve all pressured him once or twice before, but with this formality behind it, like this is what they ought to do because he’s there and he’s their leader and he _needs_ to acclimate to these new times and the new people in it.  That unspoken expectation becomes an unspoken burden.

So he skipped out tonight.  When everyone was limping back to his or her respective suites for post-battle showers and bandaging up the minor (and maybe not so minor) hurts they were no doubt hiding, he slipped out of the Tower, grabbed his bike, and rode back here, back here to his cold and empty apartment down the hall.  And he’s still standing, a little slumped because his back hurts like hell and he knows he’s got a dozen bruises and cuts that need tending, and he’s still staring at his door.  It’s six of one, half dozen of the other, really.  The pressure of trying to fit in, of trying to be strong and _okay_ with this new existence of his.  Or this box down there at the end of the hallway, so quiet and empty, where the ghosts of the past all too easily slip out of the shadows to torment him.

He hasn’t slept a night through since 1945.

Eventually Steve keeps going.  He always does, no matter how he’s been hurt, how low he is.  No matter what.  That’s what he promised his mother, promised Bucky, promised himself.  So he plods down the hallway and fishes his keys out of his jacket pocket.  Then he shoves the key into the lock.  His hands are shaking.  He didn’t realize that before, not until now, and it takes some doing to get himself steady enough to actually get his apartment door open.

He limps inside.  It’s what he expected: dark, cold, and empty.  Bigger than anything he used to have, because, again, everything in this new world is bigger.  Bigger, ergo better.  That’s the mantra of life in the twenty-first century.  If it costs more, it does more, and if it does more, it’s necessary.  Well, he’s sure this apartment is costing SHIELD thousands (this is a nice area of Brooklyn, and he knows living here isn’t cheap).  Furthermore, the things he “has” do more than he ever imagined: showing movies on screens as tiny as a playing card or as huge as a window, cooking food in an instant, connecting him to anyone else in the world instantly, a veritable encyclopedia of digital information at his fingertips…  His needs and wants capable of being fulfilled with a tap of a button or a word to a computer.  It should have been something incredible, but he’s found he can’t bring himself to care much.  For all the power at his fingertips, he can’t change what’s happened.  He can’t calm the pain, can’t silence his memories, can’t numb himself to his own sorrow.  He can’t bring back the dead beyond images painted in cold and unfeeling digital hues.  He can’t adapt to being _here._

He can’t make this feel like home.

And now that he’s standing there, alone as he always is, it’s not the haven he thought it would be.  Perhaps haven isn’t the right word.  It’s not the _escape_ he thought it would be.  Sure, he doesn’t have to fake being adjusted and stoic and functional to this group of strangers who’s become his new team, but the freedom to be himself comes at a price.

It always has.

Steve sighs heavily, too tired and beaten to so much as wince at the pain in his torso.  He knows he’s got busted up ribs and whatever’s going on with his back is serious enough that he should have gone to medical for it.  _Too much._   He nudges the door closed behind him and takes a few staggering steps forward.  It’s alright.  He’ll sleep it off.  Maybe it’ll even be deep enough that he won’t dream.

He doesn’t make it another step before there’s a soft knock at the door behind him.  Steve goes stiff with confusion.  No one’s come to visit him.  No one.  Since Agent Sitwell and his entourage of helpers presented this apartment to Steve months ago, he hasn’t had a single caller.  That’s been both a blessing and a curse, a painful isolation but a much-needed reprieve from the pressures of living this new life.  Even the neighbors don’t come over; Steve’s pretty sure SHIELD has paid them all off or crafted some sort of elaborate lie to hide the fact that Captain America is living in a brownstone in Brooklyn.  He’s also pretty sure that SHIELD’s keeping an eye on him, so they probably would prevent anyone who doesn’t meet whatever criteria they have for “acceptable” from reaching his door.

So who the hell is here?

The knock comes again.  Steve jerks, startled even though he just heard it seconds before.  He’s feeling so exhausted and beaten down that he actually considers not answering.  However, whoever’s there is obviously insistent enough to knock again after being met with silence for only a couple moments.  Plus he figures ignoring it would be the height of bad manners even in this day and age, and his mother taught him better than that.  Therefore, before he can think twice, he’s limping back to the door and opening it.

Steve can’t quite believe his eyes.  “Thor?”

Thor lowers his fist, which was up and ready to knock again (or break the door down, if the concern on the other man’s face is any indication).  That concern transforms from anxiety to much deeper worry as he sees Steve. 

For his own part, Steve can’t make heads or tails of this.  He shakes his head, looking the demigod up and down.  Thor’s dressed in casual clothes, which Steve always finds a little… well, odd.  Not bad by any means but just a little strange.  Thor’s something to behold.  He’s huge, a bit taller than Steve and Steve is quite tall himself, bigger than almost everyone he knows.  The Asgardian is truly larger than life, and he has a presence to him that’s just as intimidating as his size.  Steve supposes that makes sense, being that he’s an…  _Alien_ always seems like such a vulgar term, though Steve knows it’s technically correct.  _From another planet._   From another world, another dimension, from the heavens…  Steve’s still not quite sure how to describe it.  In any case, he’s not from earth, doesn’t fit in here even in his blue jeans, red t-shirt, and black jacket.  He sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn’t seem to mind at all.

Steve wishes he could be that comfortable, but he’s not.  Not in this world.  Not even in this body, which still seems so weird and new to him sometimes even though Project: Rebirth was over two years ago (well, sixty-seven years ago, but who’s counting?).  He still feels like a skinny, poor stick of a kid rather than like Captain America.  His therapist has a term for that, too: body dysphoria.  Frankly, to Steve it’s all the same.  He doesn’t even feel at home in his own skin.

At any rate, Thor never seems to have that problem.  As Steve understands it, Thor’s the crown prince of his world and the God of Thunder to boot, worshipped by the Norse ages ago.  In just the few months that they’ve been fighting side by side, Steve’s seen Thor do things that boggle his mind.  He’s stronger than any mortal man, far stronger than Steve himself, perhaps even stronger than the Hulk.  He can fight harder and longer and barely break a sweat.  With that hammer of his, he can summon lightning, fly, smash concrete and destroy enemies, rain hellfire down from the skies.  The sort of villains the Avengers usually fight is simply no match for him.

Which makes the fact that he’s here on earth, lending his powers to what likely are unrelated and minor squabbles to him, all that much more remarkable.  And the fact that he’s _standing_ right outside Steve’s door with that look on his face…  “Why are you here?” Steve finally asks.

Thor’s expression falls further into a tense frown.  “I was worried,” he says, looking Steve over.

For some reason, Steve can’t process that.  “What?”

“You left so quickly after the fight,” Thor explains, “and you ignored Stark’s requests to join us for revelry.”

“I didn’t ignore it,” Steve protests.  “I just didn’t…”  A pang of pain shoots its way up his side, and he grimaces before he can stop it.  “Didn’t feel up to it this time.”

Thor frowns.  “May I come in?”

Steve shakes his head.  “This isn’t a…”  He doesn’t bother finishing, first because it’s rude and second because it’s pretty clear it won’t do much good.  For whatever reason, Thor’s here, and it doesn’t seem like he’s leaving.  So Steve exhales slowly and stands aside, making room for Thor to pass.

Thor doesn’t hesitate.  He never does, really, not with anything.  That’s one of the things Steve likes about him.  Truth be told, as the demigod stands in the front entry of his apartment and takes in his surroundings, Steve’s taking in him.  Truth be told, he doesn’t know much about Thor, despite the other’s somewhat gregarious personality.  Of all the Avengers, he seems to be the most unreachable, the most _different_ from him.  Barton and Romanoff he gets; they’re spies, but they work for a military organization, and Steve knows military.  Stark is…  Well, Stark is Stark.  He reminds Steve a lot of his father (a fact which Steve would never tell him), only a bit ruder and a lot more damaged.  He’s a good guy underneath all that.  And Banner’s understandable.  Relatable.  His personality, his aversion to touch, his cool-mannered aloofness…  It makes sense.  Steve likes his control, likes his logical approach to things.

But Thor…  “Did you follow me here?” Steve asks.  He can’t recall telling Thor (or anyone) exactly where this apartment was, though he’s fairly certain they know he has one.  After all, he doesn’t sleep at the Tower.

“Not precisely,” Thor answers once he’s done appraising Steve’s place.  “Stark’s man in the walls assisted.”

Of course.  JARVIS seems to know everything.  Steve doesn’t know whether to be affronted or amazed.  An awkward silence comes.  Thor just stands there, tall and undaunted though Steve’s sure he saw the other take a few bad hits during the fight.  He seems like he’s waiting for something, though Steve has no damn clue what.  Eventually Steve remembers his manners again.  “You, uh…”  He heads to the kitchen, putting more concerted effort into hiding his limp.  “Do you want something to drink?”

“No,” Thor says.  He clasps his hands in front of him, staring at Steve with that pinched expression again.  “No, thank you.”

“Um… okay.”  Steve abandons getting coffee started.  Of course, as he’s lifting his arm to the cabinet, another spasm consumes his muscles, and he nearly drops the mug he’s putting back.  It ends up clanking to the counter, and he leans into the edge and struggles to breathe through the pain.  It’s bad, bad enough that the world grays and air can’t seem to get into his lungs and he’s actually concerned he may pass out.

He doesn’t, and when it’s over, he feels something – _someone_ – behind him.  His senses are so hazy that his adrenaline kicks in hard, a jolt of panic that seems to come from nowhere, and he’s whirling, fists clenched and heart pounding and ready to fight on instinct.

But there’s no need.  It’s still just Thor, and the demigod grasps his wrists and stills him.  _Stills_ him.  Because Thor is stronger than he is.  Thor is one of the few people on this planet who can stand toe to toe with him.  That’s… comforting in a way.  Makes him feel more human.  Makes him feel just a bit like he used to be, before the army pumped him full of super soldier serum and turned him from a ninety-pound asthmatic to Captain America.

Still, Thor’s too close, and this isn’t any of his business.  “I’m fine,” Steve gasps, pushing him back lightly and evading his grasp.  God, he’s shaking and he can’t stop it.

He feels more than hears Thor’s sigh, because Thor hasn’t moved away at all.  “You are a very poor liar.”

Steve grunts a rueful laugh.  He wipes at a tickle on his cheek and is mortified to see his fingers come away wet.  What the hell is wrong with him all the sudden?  For weeks, _months,_ he’s carried on just fine, and now, all the sudden, he’s weak and pathetic.  _The pain’s not that bad._   He tells himself that all the time.  Usually it works.  _The pain’s not that bad.  The pain’s not that bad._   Usually he can make himself believe it.

_The pain’s…  It’s not that bad._

“Steve.”

Thor’s voice pulls him from his haze in his head.  _Steve._   Not Steven or Captain.  Thor has never called him by anything other than those terms before, strictly formal and with respect.  This has respect, but there’s something else there.  Steve blinks the cloudiness away and focuses on the other man.  Thor’s still so close, right in front of him, but he’s not touching him.  Part of Steve wishes he would.  The other part…  “Why are you here?” he asks again, feeling off-kilter and just a bit threatened. He doesn’t have a clue why.

Thor frowns.  “Why are _you_ here?”  Steve opens his mouth, but no words come out because he doesn’t know what to say.  Thor’s going on anyway.  “You are hurt.  That’s clear to see.  You should have sought aid.”

Steve shakes his head, and for some reason his cheeks burn with embarrassment.  And that’s stupid, because he’s a soldier.  He knows his own body, knows his limits, _knows he’s fine_.  “I don’t need it.  I’ll heal.”  He tries to step away.

Thor gently takes his arm once more.  His big hand can’t quite engulf Steve’s wrist, but his grip is firm enough.  “You also have no need to suffer,” he replies, voice tense with displeasure, “particularly not in solitude.  I have seen you do this before.  You take no reprieve after we fight, find no comfort for your hurts, and you are tense and reserved with us.”

“I’m–”

“A very poor liar,” Thor says again, and the fervor of his gaze suggests he won’t tolerate an argument.  “A warrior who does not trust his comrades is bound for destruction.”

“It’s not that,” Steve quickly declares.  Thor stares, and Steve actually feels cowed.  It’s a strange thing, considering he’s faced down the Red Skull and Loki and a plethora of villains since and not once been so doubtful.  “I trust you.  I trust all of you.  I do.”  He hesitates, vacillates, wonders if he should.  He wants to.  “It’s…”

As it turns out, though, he doesn’t need to.  “It’s what happened to you,” Thor finishes for him.  “It’s this time and this world and your lack of a place in it.”  Steve focuses on him, surprised even though he’s starting to think he shouldn’t be.  Thor’s face is sad but compassionate.  More than compassionate.  “I have watched you do this,” he says again, softer, and he grasps Steve’s shoulders.  “I have watched you close yourself off from the others.  From me.”  It seems odd that he would say that, particularly this way, but something about it is sincerely warming.  “You believe no one sees you detach from what’s around you, but I do.  Perhaps the rest of our team and even you think me unobservant, but I see quite a bit.”

“That’s not…”  Steve wants to deny it, but he has to admit it’s true.  Thor’s just…  He’s as much a fish out water as Steve is, only he seems…  Oblivious is too harsh a term, but aloof implies that he maybe cares about how others perceive his situation when he doesn’t seem to.  Not enough to let it affect him at any rate.  “I don’t think that.”  Thor sighs, and for a second Steve fears he’s insulted him.  That seems wrong, as wrong as the pain radiating up and down his chest and back that he’s trying so hard to ignore.  “You don’t have to be here is what I’m saying.  I can handle it.”

“I am beginning to doubt that very much, my friend,” Thor replies softly.  Steve bristles inwardly, though there is no heat in Thor’s voice nor anger in his eyes.  Thor patiently studies him as if he’s looking for confirmation and willing to wait until he gets it.  “I see you.  At Stark’s Tower, after the battles we fight…  I see you stare at no one, at nothing, as if you believe you can look hard enough to gaze into the past.  I see you long for things that are lost to you, things that can no longer be.  I see you drift in search of places you can no longer go, of people you can no longer have anywhere but in the quiet of your heart.”  Christ, hearing that hurt.  Was he so damn obvious?  Steve thought not, but maybe he’s been wrong all this time.  He tries to move away, ashamed, but Thor gently grasps his shoulder and stops him.  It doesn’t take much.

Thor stares at him now with an intensity to his gaze Steve hasn’t seen before.  The blue of his eyes is piercing, and Steve feels shaky.  Teetering on the edge of something.  He doesn’t know what.  This strange place and all the strange things and people in it…  He feels like he may fall away from it.  Thor rubs a thumb over the ball of his shoulder, over and over again, and that small touch, that tiny, surprisingly soft sweep, feels powerful and weighty.  It takes Steve’s beleaguered mind a moment to realize why.

This is one of, if not the first, time that someone in this new world has touched him with concern.  With compassion.  Without hesitation and without fear or doubt or nervousness or the clinical distance his therapist and the SHIELD medical staff always have.  Without the uncertainty the other Avengers always seem to have too when they bump into him or shake his hand for a job well done or ask him if he’s okay with a tentative brush to his arm.  This isn’t that.  It’s not _any_ of that.  This is…

This is more.

Thor’s eyes are burning for how bright they are.  “I see you bear the weight of your separation as though it cannot be helped.  That’s not the truth.”

“It’s not…”  Steve sighs, but his chest and back throb again, and he doesn’t dare breathe too deeply.  He doesn’t dare move away either, because this one small brush of Thor’s hand to his skin is too nice.  “I’m not…”  He just stammers because he doesn’t know how to explain.  He doesn’t know if he wants to or even can.  He just knows that this pit inside him, where the ice has gouged deep into the fabric of his being only to thaw and recede and leave a gaping, empty wound…  With just this small and seemingly random acknowledgment, it’s more open and it hurts more than ever before.  “This isn’t home.”

Thor stares at him like he’s offering the world to him and just hoping he’ll accept it.  His free hand comes up to grasp Steve’s other shoulder, and the agony inside almost has Steve sinking into his embrace.  It’d be so easy, to fall forward, _to fall_ like he thinks he’s going to, into Thor’s chest.  He’s so tired.  So goddamn tired.

Then Thor finally nods.  “No, it is not,” he agrees.  “But it may become that, if you allow it to.”

Steve closes his eyes.  That seems like an invitation, though to what he’s not sure.  “I’m just…”  It’d be so _easy_.

But he doesn’t let himself go.  “I can’t yet.”  He whispers that, hates himself for doing it even if he’s not quite sure what he’s turning down.  If he’s even turning anything down.

Thor frowns but accepts his answer.  He steps back a bit and looks Steve up and down, at his shaking body and slumping posture.  “At least allow me to bring you to SHIELD.  You require medical attention.”

“No!” Steve says quickly, harshly even.  The denial bursts out of him before he can even think about it because the idea of going back there, to that alien place with the equipment that seems from a sci-fi story and the doctors with their clinically appropriate amount of sympathy in their eyes, is utterly repulsive.  It’s the same reason he came here in the first place, to this empty apartment that doesn’t have any meaning to him.  At least here, he’s alone.

Or he was.  Thor doesn’t seem like he’s leaving.  In fact, he’s back to worriedly watching Steve, and he does it for such a long time that Steve lamely offers, “No, I’m fine.  I don’t need to go anywhere.”

Still Thor keeps staring.  Steve feels a tad uncomfortable with the scrutiny but not enough to look away.  “Then allow me to care for you here.”

Steve can’t process that for a moment.  He tells himself it’s because of the pain and the exhaustion.  “Here?”

Thor steps back further, and Steve swears he falters for a moment, as though he’s the nervous one now (although what he has to be nervous about, Steve has no idea.  If he was more with it, maybe he’d read into it, but he’s not, so he doesn’t).  “It is not uncommon for warriors to tend to each other’s wounds after combat,” the demigod declares.  “On Asgard we often aid one another this way when the injuries are not grievous enough to require a healer’s expertise–”

“No, I…”  Steve shakes his head.  “I’ve done it before.  During the war, I…”  The memory sweeps in from nowhere, taking him with it.  It’s a campfire in snowy France, and he’s laying against Bucky, the taste of leather between his teeth and Buck’s arms strong and familiar around him.  And there’s pain, because Dum Dum’s holding his leg down while Morita and Falsworth work the chunk of iron rebar out of his thigh.  He’s bleeding bad, and he can feel that, feel Jones and Dernier putting pressure on the wound, feel the Commandos’ tension and worry and Bucky’s terror, and he knows it’s serious, but he also knows it won’t kill him.  And he knows he’s safe.  The guys have him, and Bucky’s there, and he’s okay.  Dum Dum pulls the metal free, and he screams, and it’s more pain than he’s ever known and he’s known a lot in his life, but still he _knows_ he’s okay.  He’s okay.  After he gets himself back, gets through the agony, Bucky’s rubbing his chest and whispering solace, and Jones pulls the belt out from between his teeth, and Dernier and Falsworth are bandaging the wound up, and Dum Dum sputters some kind of utterly inappropriate joke just to relieve the tension, and Steve laughs through his tears, laughs and feels _fine._

“Steve?”

Just like that, it’s all gone.  The snow and the campfire and the warmth, not just from the fire itself but from his team, his friends, _his family_.  Bucky.  It’s gone again, and he’s back in the cold, empty box of that apartment.

He’s not alone, though.  Thor’s still there, and his hands are back on his shoulders.  There’s soft concern in his eyes.  “Steve.”

“Yeah, please,” Steve manages.  He’s shaking harder.  Suddenly the thought of being left here, of facing another night in solitude with only his memories and longing for company, is unbearable.  He throws the caution to the wind.  “If you…  If you don’t mind.  Please stay.”

Thor steps closer.  Again it’s so stupid, but Steve feels… small compared to him.  He’s not, not really, but it’s grounding.  Comforting, like he’s not just made of the serum and the stuff of legends.  “Show me.  To your bedroom?”

That seems forward, and Steve flushes, laughs softly.  Thor seems perplexed for a moment before realizing what he’s done.  “I did not mean…”

“I know,” Steve says.  “I know.”

The expression on Thor’s face gets more difficult to discern – a touch of regret and pain maybe? – but it’s gone in a blink.  “Show me,” he says again softly.

With that, Thor is helping Steve limp down the hallway and deeper into the apartment.  It’s not far, but Steve’s hurting so much worse than he was even a few minutes ago so it’s slow going.  The second Thor slings his arm over his shoulders and wraps his hand around Steve’s waist, the pain gets much more intense, damaged muscles along his torso shrieking their misery as they’re stretched and twisted.  Still Steve feels better for Thor’s support, even with how much it hurts.

He also feels better seeing his perfectly made bed, the bed in which he’s spent many a long night staring into the shadows and not able to sleep for the fear he’s had of his nightmares.  And the _lack_ of anything anywhere.  There’s nothing of his own.  Nothing at all.  The room looks neutral, untouched, _precisely_ the same as it did when Fury first showed it to him.  Every time he’s come in here since then, it’s like the ice settling back into his chest.

This is different, _warm,_ because he’s not alone.

Thor helps him sit.  He kneels in front of him and pulls his shoes off.  “Where is it the worst?”

Steve grimaces and gives a rueful, battered smile.  “Everywhere?”

Thor isn’t pleased.  “Allow me to take you to–”

“It’s alright,” Steve says with as much bravado as he can muster.  “I can sleep it off.  The serum’ll heal me.”

That tense frown doesn’t loosen, though Thor does stand and look down on him.  “Let me help you undress.”

He does that, and Steve can’t suppress the shiver that runs through him that has nothing to do with the perpetual chill constantly assailing him these days.  It takes some doing for him to get his jacket off and even more for his shirt (it’s a wonder he managed to get out of his uniform and dressed in the first place to be honest).  He’s very swollen and sore, but Thor’s gentle as he helps Steve get his arms free and the clothing off.  When his chest is bare, Thor’s behind him, and he grunts something that sounds foreign and decidedly like a curse.  His fingertips lightly trace down Steve’s spine.  “I did not see you take a hit so serious as to create bruises like this.”

Steve shivers again, glancing at the red splotches on his now discarded shirt.  “Car,” he manages, thinking back briefly to the fight and the SUV that was thrown at him.  He’s lucky to be alive frankly, considering how he was crushed between the car tossed in his direction and the bus against which he was pinned.  If it not for his shield, it could have been much worse.

Thor seems even more dismayed.  “You are not immortal,” he chastises.

“Are you?” Steve asks, feeling a little delirious with Thor’s tender touch.

“For all intents and purposes.  Lie down.”  Thor’s hands are careful as they maneuver Steve onto his stomach.  A jolt of anxiety shoots through Steve at the vulnerable position he’s in, but Thor’s hands stay on his skin, warm and gentle, and he quivers harder before melting into his comforter and overly soft mattress.  He can almost feel Thor frown as the other studies his damaged back.  Then he hears him sigh more.  “Stay here.”

“Thor?” he whispers.

“Don’t move.”  The hands leave, and Steve moans at the loss of contact, at the pain rising up inside him again.  He hears Thor’s quick, heavy steps leaving the bedroom and down the hallway.  Steve closes his eyes.  Goddamn tears are stinging his eyes, and he shivers more and more.  Without Thor there, he’s right back to drifting, his mind slipping into the past, to the places it can’t go anymore.  Distance and detachment.

But then the hands are back, and he startles.  He apparently dozed, sank into that place that’s just between wakefulness and dreams.  “Easy,” Thor murmurs, settling onto the mattress beside him.  “Stay still.”

“Thor–”

“It is well.  I have brought ice.”  Something incredibly cold settles against the most painful spots on his back, and Steve scrambles in the comforter, trying to get away.  “Steve, lie still.  Allow the ice to soothe the swelling.”

“’s cold,” Steve groans.

Thor’s hand falls on the back of his head.  “As ice often is,” he jokes, and it’s not said ignorantly of Steve’s trauma at all but rather to calm him.  Steve knows that and swallows down his aversion and clenches against the whole-body shudder threatening.  “Easy,” Thor murmurs again, stroking lightly at his sweaty hair.  “Easy.”

After a couple seconds, the cold permeates his injuries enough to quell the pain.  Steve does settle again, the tension unwinding from his muscles.  Thor touches his back, and it’s numb enough now that he can hardly feel anything but the heat of Thor’s palms contrasting with the cold.  It’s strangely nice.  Thor’s cleaning his wounds; Steve hears the click of his first aid kit opening, and he feels a damp washcloth wipe over this back.  That makes the pain return, but it’s distant now.  Distant and muted.  “Thanks,” he whispers.

“You would do the same for me,” Thor replies.

The sound of packages being opened, of bandages being unraveled, fill the stretch of silence afterward.  Steve winces at the burn on his back.  He recognizes the sting of antiseptic anywhere, and he’s tempted to tell Thor not to bother, that his wounds can’t get infected so it’s a waste to treat them like this, but he doesn’t.  He can’t muster the energy.  A warm sense of contentment is overwhelming him now.  This is good.  This is safe.  “I would,” he mumbles into his arms where he’s pillowed them under his chin.  “Promise.”

Thor chuckles.  “I know.”

The gratitude he’s feeling…  He can’t even begin to express it.  His eyelids droop, and everything quiets.  Everything.  For the first time since he awoke to a white-washed recovery room in a lie made to look like the past, he feels _comfortable._   “Thor…”

“Perhaps one day,” Thor says, resting his one hand at the small of Steve’s back below the bandages and the other still softly threading through his hair.  “For now, sleep.”

Steve doesn’t need to be told.  He already is.

* * *

_Restoration_

This begins a routine of sorts.  They quickly become very good friends.  Given that neither of them know much about this world in which they find themselves, it doesn’t take long at all for them to truly bond over their mutual “fish out of water” situations.  Together they navigate the ocean of understanding pop culture, unraveling modern colloquialisms, and learning about this modern world.  They watch movies and listen to music and read books and play video games (that’s a particular favorite thing of Thor’s).  They visit some sights and popular attractions around the city.  Steve takes Thor through Brooklyn and points out where he used to live, where he and Bucky used to play, where they went to school and to church and to dances.  Steve regales him with stories about how it used to be, about the people he used to know, and it’s utterly shocking to him how _easy_ it is to talk candidly about his past with Thor.  He’s never been able to talk with his therapist this way.  He and Thor talk a lot, in fact, both about the lives they’ve led in other times and places and about this new life they inexplicably find themselves living together.  Steve’s so grateful to have the companion, to have someone _comprehend_ just how damn difficult this is sometimes.  And it’s not as if it’s hard to learn anything; the serum makes it easy for him to pick up on so much so fast that he’s managing to plug the gaps in his knowledge with dizzying alacrity.  But when Stark says something that goes over his head or Romanoff makes some reference he doesn’t catch or Barton jokes about some circumstances he doesn’t understand, Thor’s right there at his side to be puzzled with him or to defend him or to laugh right with him at how dumb some things are or how other things make no sense.

Thor’s there at his side in battle, too.  In battle and out of battle.  _After_ every battle.  Each time, no matter how crazy and chaotic the aftermath is, Thor always finds him and helps him come down from the adrenaline of the fight, from the anxiety and pain that often seems to threaten him.  Thor steadies him, distracts him with a game or movie or food, with _anything_ he can.  He eases him into joining the team when they chose to decompress together.  Thor even patches him up when he avoids medical and can’t do it himself.  It’s as if the Asgardian has some sort of sixth sense about him, knowing when he needs space and when he needs support.  Steve feels pretty guilty to be constantly accepting Thor’s aid, particularly when Thor himself seems to have no need of anything Steve can do for him.  He rarely gets wounded in battle, not even during the Avengers’ more difficult and dangerous altercations.  He rarely seems troubled, comfortable and content with the world and his place in it.  Steve can’t help but envy the aplomb with which he faces everything.  It’s remarkable, and Steve quickly finds he respects Thor more and more for how simply and easily he adjusts to whatever life throws his way.

But things change.  They inevitably do.  A few months later Thor suddenly returns to Asgard.  He leaves with hardly any warning, with hardly even a goodbye.  With hardly even an explanation, at least nothing beyond that his father summoned him to contend with unrest in the Nine Realms.  For the first time since Loki’s war, Steve sees the other man troubled, really troubled, and nothing he says or does makes a difference as Thor dons his armor, grabs his hammer, and calls on Heimdall to bring him home.  Helplessly Steve watches, battling this pain inside him he doesn’t fully understand, frustrated as all hell to have Thor leave like this, _upset_ like this, and he’s unable to do a damn thing to stop it or make it better.  No matter how he feels, he can’t stop the sky from splitting open and the light from swallowing Thor whole and whisking him away.

Months go by.  Steve finds himself working less and less with the Avengers and more and more for SHIELD.  Fury asked him shortly before Thor left to become an agent of SHIELD, to lend his considerable combat and tactical skills to the covert ops organization.  At the time, Steve didn’t want to commit to the offer; he still doesn’t trust Fury or SHIELD even though the Avengers work with them on the regular.  However, now it seems more of an option, particularly since Stark’s gotten himself entangled with someone called the Mandarin and Banner’s more reluctant than ever to unleash the Hulk (Steve thinks the scientist considered Thor an insurance policy of sorts; if the Hulk ever got out of control, Thor could at least attempt to contend with the beast).  With the Avengers silently falling apart, Steve ends up running ops for SHIELD with Romanoff and Barton.  It’s not as daunting and unpleasant as he feared, even if he still has his doubts about SHIELD.

He even takes Fury’s suggestion and allows SHIELD to move him from Brooklyn to Washington, DC.  It’s nice to have a change of pace, anyway.  And it’s nice to work with some new people.  He’s wary at first, always wary, but even though the STRIKE Team handles itself differently from the Commandos and from the Avengers, he thinks he can get used to their rough edges.  Fury put him in command of them, and they welcomed him without any problems.  They’re all black ops soldiers, the strongest and best in the world, a tactical assault unit in the truest sense of the word, but they’re not all that bad a bunch.  Steve doesn’t feel like he fits in with them, not by a longshot, but maybe…  Maybe eventually he can get used to this.

It’s early spring now and almost a year since he woke up to the future.  Steve’s cold and tired and banged up to hell and back as he wrestles with the lock of his new apartment.  He hears a soft thud, one that’s barely perceptible at all, and turns, wondering if it came from behind him.  There’s no one there, but he’s still jumpy just hours removed from their last mission.  He really doesn’t want to deal with his neighbor right now; she’s very sweet, very nice to him, but she’s a nurse, and there’s no way he can hide the fact that he’s pretty sure there’s a bullet in his right shoulder.  He barely hid it from the SHIELD brass at the quick mission debrief and from the medics there to attend to the STRIKE Team after its return from Iraq.  He’s pretty sure he can get it out himself, and the serum will help if he can pull it close enough to the surface.  Same as it always is.

Sighing tiredly, he gets the key into the lock and opens the door.  Then he drops his keys in utter shock.  “Thor?”

Thor’s there, and he looks distraught.  “I am sorry,” he immediately says.

Steve glances up and down Thor’s body.  He’s dressed in earth clothes, in dark jeans and a blue shirt and a heavier parka that’s probably more to fit in than for actual protection from the cold.  His hair’s longer, pulled back into a pony tail rather than loose and flowing, and there’s a tiny braid at one temple.  His bearded face is the same though, save for the frown.  Steve shakes his head in shock.  “What are you doing here?”

“I snuck in,” Thor says by way of an answer.  It’s overly obvious.  “I am capable of stealth when it suits me.”  Thor’s deep blue eyes flick over Steve’s form.  “As are you, or so I’ve been told.”

Steve’s not processing that for a moment.  Finally he remembers to come all the way inside and close the door behind him.  “By whom?” he asks as he crouches to get his keys, wincing all the way.

Thor takes a step forward.  The moment of tension doesn’t seem to be enough to dissuade him from touching Steve.  He takes Steve’s shoulders and helps him stand.  “Are you hurt?”

God, just that simple touch…  It’s only been a few months, but it feels like forever since he’s felt it.  The warmth of Thor’s hands goes right through his own jacket and shirt, the strength and comfort of it making his skin tingle.  He swallows and steadies himself.  “Not much,” he says, and that’s mostly true.  “Got banged up on the last mission.”  Thor’s not pleased with that.  In this short time, Steve’s forgotten that particular look he gets when Steve is hurt and not addressing it.  Before Thor can force the issue, though, he’s asking more.  “Who told you where I am?”

Thor lets him go and steps back.  “Stark,” he says, turning away.  “He claims you went back to marching to Fury’s fife.”

Steve grunts, cocking his head.  “That sounds like Tony.”

Thor nods sadly.  “I went back to the Tower only to find the team is no longer there.”

There’s a shade of pain in Thor’s voice.  Steve grimaces at it.  “Yeah, things are different.  Stark’s, well…  Stark.  Banner’s with him, I think, and Barton and Romanoff are here…”  He trails off, shaking his head.  “When did you get back?”

“A couple weeks ago.”

Steve shakes his head, not understanding.  Reeling, really.  _A couple weeks._ “Where have you been then?”

Thor doesn’t answer.  For a moment he seems like he wants to say something, admit something maybe, but he doesn’t.  Instead he exhales heavily and looks around at Steve’s apartment.  “This new place of yours…  It is quite nice.  Larger than the other and more…  More…”

“Like home?”  Thor nods.  Steve comes to stand beside him, appraising everything as well.  “Yeah, I guess so.  I’m not here much, but it’s…  It’s okay.”

It was okay.  It’s still not home, not by a longshot, but it’s not as bereft of any sense of comfort or ownership like his apartment in Brooklyn was.  SHIELD had someone decorate and furnish the rooms on his behalf before he moved in, and whoever did it chose a simple palette of tans, creams, and whites.  It’s nice, warmer and brighter, an empty canvas in effect and he’s been more interested in adding his own touches to it.  He’s actually already put some of his things here and there.  A slew of his books and movies.  His files and folders from SHIELD on the coffee table.  His laptop and phone.  His sketchbook.  A nice, warm fleece throw he bought for the nights where he doesn’t want to sleep in his bed (though lessened, those nights still come often.  So goddamn _often_ ).  Punches of color from pillows and paintings.  Some modern art he purchased from an exhibit he went to not long ago.  A plant he brought in just to have something to come home to.

Pictures.  Thor goes to a couple of those, framed on the bookshelf behind his couch.  They’re black and white prints.  One is of the Howling Commandos, standing at the ready for a shot before battle with him in the center.  Another is of Peggy, and she’s just as stunning as she looked back in 1944 with her dark, wavy hair, lush lips (he can still see how flawlessly red they were), and deep, powerful eyes.  Finally there’s one of Bucky, young, charming, and handsome in his sergeant’s uniform.  Thor picks that one up and studies it carefully, and there’s still something in his eyes that he’s trying to hold back.

Worried, Steve takes a couple steps closer.  “You okay?”

Quickly Thor sets the photo back with a soft thud.  “I am well,” he replies firmly.  He nods to where Steve’s been protecting his injured arm.  “Will you require my aid in tending to your wounds?”

Steve’s still not exactly sure how Thor’s come or what happened that brought him back to earth, but the reason he’s _here_ of all places is clear enough.  Apparently their budding friendship from before Thor’s departure wasn’t as one-sided as Steve thought.  That feels good.  “If you’re willing, I won’t turn it down.”

Just like that, they fall into their old routine.  Steve leads Thor to his bedroom and leaves him there while he fetches his first aid kit.  He’s going to need a knife, so he takes the sharpest paring knife he has and a bowl of water that he microwaves until it gets hot.  His trip back is more graceless and clumsy, carrying all this stuff with an arm that’s stiff, hurting, and not working right.  Thor looks up when he comes in.  The demigod hasn’t moved, and Steve aches inside for how discontented the other seems.  He feels like he knows Thor well enough at this point to tell something is really wrong.

He wishes Thor would confide in him.

“You seem more relaxed here,” Thor comments.  The remark feels abrupt and a bit random until Steve notices the other man is staring at his bed.  His not quite perfectly made bed, because he’s slept in it once or twice.  And he has clothes around his bedroom.  A little clutter.  The signs of someone _living_ here.  It’s a stark contrast to his old bedroom in his old place and a definite improvement.

“Yeah,” Steve comments, pleased with how settled it appears he’s become.  “Anyway, we probably oughtta do this in the can.”

“The… can?”

“I mean the bathroom,” Steve clarifies, limping his way into the master bath.  Thor follows him. “That’s not even a modern phrase.”

The joke falls flat.  “Oh.” 

Steve sets his things down to the counter.  Then he turns and closes the toilet lid.  He sits there, grimacing and catching his breath for a second.  He can feel that damn bullet grinding up against the bones in his shoulder.  Thor stands in front of him, looking down and just a little lost.  The bathroom is big enough for both of them to be in it, but it’s not all that spacious, and Steve’s knees are brushing Thor’s knees, and Steve’s face is…

Well.

Steve swallows and strips his jacket off.  His shoulder throbs like a bastard, and he can’t quite do it without a very telling wince.  Thor’s hands are there immediately, grabbing at the coat and working it off gently.  Steve looks down and sees the bandages he hastily applied before leaving the Triskelion have been soaked through, and there’s blood on his shirt.  Thor isn’t bothered by that, pulling the garment up without much hesitation.  “What happened?” he asks.

“Got shot,” Steve answers as the other man starts unraveling the sodden bandage around his shoulder.

By now Thor’s familiar enough with his physiology (and his methods of handling his own injuries) not to question further.  He dumps the bloody gauze into the sink and kneels in front of Steve, pulling the first aid kit closer.  “How deep is the bullet?”

“Deep enough that I want to get it out,” Steve says with gritted teeth as Thor prods at the already scabbed, tender hole in his flesh.  This hurts even worse, but it’s not like it isn’t something he’s had done before.  Thor’s even done it before for him, for crying out loud.  It’s not a big deal.

But it feels like more than it should because Thor’s not _Thor_ right now, as weird as that sounds.  Steve wonders if a few months of friendship gives him the right to judge that.  He doesn’t say anything though as Thor grabs the clean paring knife and goes to work.

The harsh bite the knife’s tip piercing his flesh is completely expected as Thor reopens the wound.  Steve holds his breath against it, grabbing his knees hard, and doesn’t watch.  He’s got a strong stomach – always has given his long list of medical maladies and his mother’s career as a nurse – but there’s something particularly gruesome about watching someone slice open your own skin and seeing and _smelling_ your own blood.  Thor’s quick.  Even though Steve’s never once said anything about how queasy this makes him, he’s figured it out.  In no time at all, Thor’s fishing inside his shoulder for the bullet with the tweezers from the first aid kit.  Steve forces himself to breathe deeply as he does.  The silence seems confining, and he wants to break it, but he doesn’t know what to say.

Thor comes up with something.  “Your new arrangement here…  The new apartment.  The job with SHIELD.  This new team…”  His blue eyes flick upward.  “Is it a good one?”

It’s a pretty forward question.  Steve considers what to say.  “It’s good enough.”

“You feel… good about it?”

That seems odd, too.  “Good?  I don’t…”

“Happy.  Satisfied.  Comfortable.”

Steve still can’t think of what to say.  It’s self-deprecating as hell, but he can’t lie.  “Not sure how happiness factors into it, or comfort for that matter…”  Particularly given their current endeavor.  Steve grabs a spare bandage with his free hand to try and catch the blood rolling down his pec.   “But…  Yeah, I’m satisfied.”  He has to force down the urge to shrug.  Wouldn’t be smart with a pair of tweezers digging around in his shoulder.  “I’m doing what I was made to do.  Serving the greater good, I guess.  Following orders.  Protecting people.”

“Do they protect you?”

“Huh?”  Steve doesn’t follow.  He’s trying not to be insulted by the implication he _needs_ protection.  He didn’t before, and he sure as hell doesn’t now.  Still, it’s clear Thor’s worried, and Steve doesn’t think being irritated about that would do either of them any favors.  “We’re a team.  We protect each other.”

That’s not as firm as it should be, and he doesn’t exactly know why it’s not.  Thor immediately picks up on it.  His eyes are narrowed as he maneuvers the tweezers deeper into the injury, searching and probing, and Steve grinds his teeth together.  For a few seconds, he just focuses on breathing through the pain.  Thor affords him little mercy, hunting with more pressure and gusto, eager to get this done.  Steve braces himself when he realizes Thor’s found the bullet, and Thor’s touch gentles a moment before he pulls it free.

Steve barely chokes down a yelp, and the world gets gray and hazy and cold for a moment.  Then he feels Thor’s sturdy presence, Thor’s hands on him, and the warmth comes back.  Thor’s pressing a bandage over the wound, pressing hard with his right hand.  His left arm goes around Steve’s back, hauling him in close and using his own strength to push Steve’s shoulder into the bandage from behind.  Steve grunts, shivers a second or two, and then relaxes.  _Jesus._   “You think I’d be used to this by now,” he mutters, clumsily reaching up a hand from between them to wipe away embarrassing tears.

Thor says nothing.  He just keeps Steve close, keeps him tight, and the moment goes on too long to simply be for the sake of stopping the bleeding.  Steve’s more concerned than ever.  The pain from his shoulder is fading to a dull, burning ache, but his heart feels heavy, and his hand wavers a moment before wrapping around Thor.  The hug is fiercely tight; it seems like Steve’s ribs are bending from the force of it.  “Thor?  You okay?”

“Mother is dead.”

The words are hardly more than a whisper against his ear.  They’re so sudden, too, and so unexpected, and they take Steve aback.  He stiffens before he can stop himself. “What?”

Thor goes on.  “Mother is dead, and so is Loki.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say.  The shock is too intense.  “When?”

Abruptly Thor pulls away.  “Just a few weeks past.”  He takes Steve’s hand by the wrist, and the grip is electrifying.  However, he’s only putting Steve’s own fingers to his shoulder, replacing the sodden bandage with a fresh one and having him hold it there.  “There was…  God, I was a fool.”

“Thor, what–”

“Surely Fury knew of it,” Thor says, and there’s bitterness in his tone as he grabs more bandages.  He starts opening them and then furrows his brow.  “Shall I stitch it?”

Steve’s mind is racing.  “Are you talking about what happened in Greenwich?”  That was big gossip at SHIELD a few weeks back.  Steve was on assignment at the time with Barton, Romanoff, and the STRIKE Team, and everything was over and done with by the time he returned to DC.  The media was all over the incident, but Fury was tight-lipped and silent about the whole thing no matter how Steve requested and demanded.  Natasha offered to try and glean some information about whatever occurred, but Steve hasn’t heard much since, and he’s been so busy, mission after mission after mission, paperwork, consults, training, all of that with Fury hovering…  “Why wouldn’t he want me to know?  What…”  It doesn’t make sense, and this itchy feeling of being _used_ settles into Steve’s stomach.  “What happened?”

Thor doesn’t answer for a moment, and Steve has to admit he’s afraid.  He’s not sure of what.  “I renounced the throne,” the demigod finally declares.  He opts on his own not to suture the bullet wound and the lacerated skin around it, instead pressing a sterile pad tight to the area and winding gauze around it.

Steve squints at his friend, shaking his head in alarm.  “Why?”

“I saw my father become something I fear,” Thor softly answers.  “And I realized being king requires a level of stoicism and detachment of which I don’t believe myself capable.”  He narrows his eyes, his hands slowing as he slips more into his thoughts.  “A level of coldness and control over others that I do not find moral.  Not anymore.  Not ever again.”  A small smile turns his lips just a bit.  “I have learned too much compassion.  I think it’s rather ironic, since my father sent me here in the first place because he believed that was something I lacked.”

“Hardly,” Steve says.  “You’re…  Thor, you’ve got the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Steve swears for a moment there’s a bit of a sudden blush blooming on Thor’s cheeks.  It’s gone before he can even be sure.  “My father is not the man he was.  I am starting to wonder if he was ever the man I believed him to be.  I will remain his warrior, and I swore I will continue to protect the Nine Realms, but I can no longer be his successor.”

Steve’s still not sure what to make of that.  “So that means you’re here to stay now?”

Thor secures the bandage tightly and looks up at him.  “I don’t know yet.  Asgard is still my home, and my father is still my father and my king, even if I am no longer his prince in practice.  I have duties there.”

 _Home._   And duty.  Steve has duties here.  That’s _why_ he’s here, why he’s been serving SHIELD.  He’s a soldier, Captain America, and he was made to fight for those who can’t.  That’s familiar.  Even if this place still doesn’t feel like home, it’s good enough.

Thor’s suddenly moving again, grasping Steve’s arms around his biceps with pressing insistence.  “There is something evil afoot,” he says, and all signs of any comfort have vanished.  His eyes are almost feverishly bright.  “I don’t know what, but I feel…  Tell me you trust them.”

Steve doesn’t follow, but he doesn’t like the tension in Thor’s voice.  “Who?”

“Your new team.  You said you protect each other.”  Steve nods, though he’s not feeling so certain.  “Do you trust them to do that?  Do you trust all of them?”

He’s not sure why Thor’s asking this, but he thinks of the pain in Thor’s voice mere moments ago when he spoke of his mother’s death and losing Loki.  Loki, who betrayed Thor so terribly, who nearly _destroyed_ both their worlds out his pettiness and jealousy.  Whatever’s happened these last couple months to turn Thor’s father and take away the rest of his family…  Clearly it’s shaken him to his core.

But even that’s not enough to bolster a lie.  He doesn’t want Thor to worry – Thor seems to have enough worries – but he has to be honest.  He has to, because Thor just dug a bullet out of his shoulder because he didn’t feel good enough about SHIELD or any of the people in it to go to medical and get help.  Or to let Rumlow and the others help him.  Or to even _admit_ to them that he was shot, to let them see any sort of weakness.  Or that there’s been that sense of unease slithering around his guts for weeks now which he’s only just acknowledging.  “No.”

Thor’s face falls like he’s expected that.  Steve gathers up the bloody mess of towels, the dirty bandages (he spots the bullet in one, crushed and deformed), and wrappers before tossing it all into the trash and standing.  The air is so thick with worry that he can’t tolerate it.  “Although you did tell me that a warrior who does not trust his comrades is bound for destruction.”

Thor grunts.  “I was a fool.”

“Depends on the comrades,” Steve says.  He reaches a hand down to his friend.  Thor doesn’t need help up, of course, but he takes it all the same.  They’re nearly chest to chest when they’re both on their feet, Steve’s bare skin to Thor’s shirt, and Steve can feel the muscles there.  The strength.  There’s something old and familiar but somehow simultaneously new and exciting about it.  Thor seems like a stranger and a kindred spirit all at once, and Steve’s still a little dizzy with that.  It doesn’t have to do with the blood loss.  “I’m alright,” he swears.  “I am now.”

“Then so I am,” Thor replies, and for the first time since Steve opened his apartment door and found him waiting, he appears that way.  Calmer.  Less troubled.  More the way he used to be.  “I am uneasy, yes, but seeing you hale and the others still more or less prepared to fight–”

“More or less,” Steve agrees with a smile.

“There’s peace to be had for the moment,” Thor declares.

An awkward silence crawls in the tiny space between them.  Something slips out of the quiet places inside Steve.  He… _wants._   He’s not sure what exactly or why.  Back in New York he built such a fast friendship with Thor, and then it was just as quickly yanked away.  The thought of having that happen again…  Steve clears his throat.  “So you’re going back to Asgard then?  Going back home?”

Thor finally drops his gaze.  He sighs and steps out of the bathroom.  This time Steve follows him.  “I’m not certain.  I came here to be certain you’re well, and you are.”

“I’m fine, Thor,” Steve says again, stepping to his dresser and pulling out a clean shirt.  “Really I am.”  Thor turns, staring at him again, _studying_ him as he tugs the shirt over his head and down his chest.  Steve stares back.  He feels his cheeks heat a bit, and he clears his throat.  “I meant it.  I’m fine.”  He would have been without Thor’s help, but having it, having him _here_ …  The words come easily, slipping right out.  “But if you don’t have to go anywhere right now, you’re welcome to stay.  It’s…  Well, I guess this place is nice enough, like you said.  It’s not bad.”  Thor looks uncertain, so Steve grins.  “Stark did send me a bunch of video games.  I haven’t even had the time–”  _Or the interest,_ he adds silently.  “–to unpack them.  Maybe together you and I can figure out how to hook them up to the TV.”

Immediately Thor’s expression brightens.  Feeling ridiculously relieved and proud of himself, Steve shrugs.  “And we could order some pizza.  I think I have beer.  We can unwind for a while?  Take some downtime together?  If you want.  Hang out for a bit?”

Thor looks away again, eyes roving over Steve’s bedroom, and Steve feels even hotter.  And for some stupid reason, he’s nervous that Thor may not accept his invitation.

But Thor turns back with a humongous smile, one that lights the room.  “I think some downtime, as you say, would suit me.”

Steve grins, too, and everything suddenly feels that much more like home.

* * *

_Recognition_

When Steve opens his eyes, he doesn’t recognize where he is at first.  There’s a lot of pain.  That seems to be the one, true constant in his life, the one that transcends space _and_ time apparently.  He hurts enough, and he’s _cold_ enough, that for one awful second, he thinks he’s back there, falling from the helicarrier with Bucky – _the Winter Soldier_ – staring after him.  He’s back there, in the river, too battered and beaten and stop himself from sinking.  He’s injured and frozen and too tired to fight.  Confusion has him reeling, snapping from past to present and back again.  _The water’s rushing in the cockpit through shattered windows and crumpled bulkheads, and it’s so cold, so goddamn cold, and he’s too hurt to swim, so he can’t get out – he can’t get out! – and the water sucks him down, so dark cold crushing…_

He’s not there, either.  This is…  Steve closes his eyes again.  Someone’s breathing heavily, wheezing, practically hyperventilating, and he belatedly realizes it’s him.  It takes a great deal of effort to get his lungs to stop seizing inside him, to calm his pounding, racing heart.  Something’s shrieking.  Alarms.  There’s panic, and there’s pain, and he can’t keep down a cry.  _I have to get out of here!_

“Steve?”

Memory blurs even more, dreams and nightmares comingling until he’s not sure what’s real and what’s not.  He just knows he can’t breathe.  He’s drowning.  No, no.  He’s _panicking_.  It’s an asthma attack.  Bucky will help him.  Bucky always does.  Back when they were kids in Brooklyn, through every time his airways closed up, through all the bad colds that invariably turned into bronchitis which sometimes took a turn for the worst and became pneumonia…  Bucky was there through it all.  _Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky._   “Bucky!”

No.  This isn’t home.  This isn’t the Valkyrie, either.  This is…  _SHIELD.  HYDRA.  Project: Insight._   He fought.  He threw down his shield.  He fell, and he _was_ drowning.  Bucky pulled him from… 

 _No._   The Winter Soldier pulled him from the river.

Suddenly the beeping and wailing alarms go silent.  The pressure that was pinching his finger disappears.  The sensor they’re using to track his vitals has been taken off, and someone’s touching him.  “Steve, can you open your eyes?”

That’s not Bucky’s voice.  That makes sense, because Bucky’s gone.  Steve’s not sure of much that’s happened since Project: Insight was knocked from the sky, since the Winter Soldier shot him three times and nearly punched his face in as the world burned around them.  Since he tumbled into the river and very nearly died.  He’s not sure of anything, but he’s sure of that.  _Bucky’s gone again._   _I failed him.  I let him go._ He can’t stop the sob breaking free from his quivering lips, and it’s not just the pain from his wounds – the sharp, sharp pain that’s blasting over him in punishing waves, excruciating and unending and _damning_ – that has him crying.

It’s Bucky.  _I have to save him._

“Steve, is the pain so grievous?  Here.  Take my hand.”

Steve clamps down on the wail twisting his throat and squeezes the fingers he finds himself holding.  That seems to be all he can do, that and helplessly writhe in bed, this hospital bed that he vaguely recognizes as where he’s been the past couple days.  The sequence of events jolts into order like magnets suddenly attracting each other and slamming their ends together.  He was rescued from the river bank by Fury, Natasha, and Sam.  They brought him to the hospital in a helicopter (he has very vague memories of this, of Sam futilely trying to keep the blood in his body and Natasha begging him to hold on with tears in her eyes), where he had emergency surgery to save his life.  Then he spent a day or so in the ICU with a tube down his throat to help him breathe and the medical staff desperately pouring blood back into him.  That he can’t recall at all, but considering how weak and worn he feels, he can believe it.  After everything, he woke up to music playing and Sam – Sam, who’s among the most decent and loyal men Steve’s ever met – right at his side.  _“On your left.”_

Sam’s not here now, though.  Steve has pretty clear recollections of his friend present before, of Sam telling him how everyone’s safe, how they defeated HYDRA and spilled its secrets onto the internet just as planned.  About how they _won._   And about how damn lucky Steve is to be alive.  Steve was so out of it at the time, the pain duller and distant enough as if it was a monster laying in wait, that he actually was.  He actually was relieved and grateful and just a bit euphoric to be awake and recovering.  _Happy._

Now…

“Steve, breathe.  Just breathe.”

Now it hurts.  Whatever reprieve he’s been granted is over.

“How bad is the pain?”

 _Bad._   It’s a knife in his guts, a knife in his back and in his leg, a knife in his heart, and he’s bleeding.

“Can they do nothing to ease your suffering?”

Knives all over, stabbing and thrusting inside him, slicing muscle and gouging organs and scraping flesh from bone.  _Bucky’s knives._   Because Bucky’s an assassin.  A murderer. A ghost story and a nightmare and a machine controlled by evil.  Bucky’s not Bucky any more.  All these years, he’s been taken and tortured and turned into something he’d never otherwise become.  For seven decades, HYDRA brainwashed him, erased any hint of Steve’s best friend, the man who followed him into hellfire and back, the man who Steve loved like his brother.  _Bucky._   The sight of Bucky staring at him without seeing him, without _recognizing him…_ Of Bucky on the other end of that gangway, glaring at him with empty eyes.  Despite the haze of delirium and confusion, that’s so miserably clear, burned into his brain, sharp as hell and about as horrible.  “It’s my fault,” he whimpers.  He feels wetness on his cheeks, tears rolling down into his temples.  He squeezes at the hands holding his, squeezes hard and tight, and suffers.  “My fault.”

“Hush.  That is not true.  You’ve no need to blame yourself.”

“… couldn’t save…  I couldn’t–”

“Squeeze my hand.  Squeeze as hard as you need.”

“I have to…  Have to….”

“Do you wish for me to call your friend?  Sam?  I am certain he can return.”

The hand reluctantly attempt to extricate themselves from his crushing grip, and Steve holds on impossibly tighter, clenching so hard he probably would have hurt anyone else.  This isn’t just anyone, though.

_Thor._

Steve finally latches onto something – _someone_ – and hauls himself fully to wakefulness.  Impossibly the pain gets much worse when he does, but Thor’s right here, squeezing his hand back and looming over him.  The world is very dark aside from a dim light overhead casting meager illumination.  It has to be nighttime, maybe the evening after he woke up with Sam there.  That makes sense.

But Thor being here doesn’t.  Steve hasn’t seen him for months, not since that night he randomly showed up at Steve’s apartment.  It’s so strange to find him at his bedside (and not just that – clearly he’s been here for a while as if he’s been keeping vigil) that for a second, Steve can’t believe it.  “How…”

Thor gives that smile of his, knowing and concerned but the tiniest bit amused.  “Surely you don’t think I cannot work a television,” he chides, gently rubbing Steve’s bruised knuckles with his thumbs.  Steve’s too overthrown with anguish and alarm to understand that.  Thor exhales slowly.  “The battle in Washington was shown nearly all over the world.  I came as soon as I could, but…”  The guilt weighs heavily.  “By the time I realized how serious the situation was, it was too late.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut again, shuddering against the pillows and twisting weekly under the thin blanket over him.  “God,” he moans.  “God Almighty…”

“Steve–”

“Is everyone…”  He can hardly get the words out.  His teeth keep clenching against the agony.  “Is everyone safe?”  After he gets the question out, he realizes Sam probably told him the answer already, but his thoughts and memories are so scattered that he can’t remember.  He needs to hear it again.

Thor nods.  “Yes,” he assures, tenderly sweeping his palm over the back of Steve’s hand.  “Yes, Steve.  Everyone is safe.  You did it.  You stopped them and forced their evil down from of the sky.”  His voice is calm and comforting, but there’s tension beneath it.  Tension and grief.  The world dims as the pain rises again, and Steve’s choking on his breath, gripping the blanket with his other hand, fighting just to get through it.  He can barely hear Thor.  “But it should not have come to this.  It should not.”  The words float, meaningless.  Steve can hardly hear them over the roaring between his ears.  “Who did this to you?”

The tears come hotter and harsher.  Steve blinks them back, fights against panic.  He’s been in crippling pain so many times before that by now he feels like he should know better.  You don’t succumb.  You don’t give in.  _Ignore it.  It’s not that bad.  Breathe and ignore it and get through it.  It’s not that bad._

But it is.  He’s never felt so low and defeated, so utterly broken and beaten, in his whole life.  “He didn’t mean to,” he says.  “Bucky’d never hurt me.  They made him do it.”

The color drains from Thor’s face.  For some reason, even the thought of Thor’s anger or disappointment is too much.  That Thor would blame Bucky…  “So it is as Sam said,” Thor finally whispers.  He shakes his head as if he rues the day this all became so complicated.  “If he so far gone that he doesn’t remember you, doesn’t know of your friendship, of what you mean to each other…  Steve, you cannot–”

“I have to!  It’s not his fault!  It’s mine!”  Suddenly it’s all coming out.  The things he couldn’t say before.  The things he couldn’t let himself feel.  Things he’s _never_ let himself feel.  “I let him go!  I let him fall!”

“Shhh, Steve, easy!”

“No!  You don’t understand!”  Steve grabs Thor’s hand and yanks him closer.  There’s nothing but the excruciating throb of the places he was shot, of his breaking heart, yet he’s frantic with the need to defend Bucky.  “You don’t understand.  He took care of me.  He protected me.  He always did.  He wouldn’t – they had to – they had to _break_ him to make him do this!”

“He has broken you,” Thor says gravely.

Steve doesn’t listen.  “During the war, no matter how bad things got, he was always right at my side.”

“I know,” Thor comforts.  “I know.”

“Even after the serum, he looked out for me.  He saved my life so many times…”  Steve heaves another breath, trying to hold back a sob.  “Over there, when everything was blood and death and – and…  He was home, you know?  We were so far from our old lives, and he was…  He’s…  He’s my friend, my family, and when he needed me, I couldn’t save him.  _I let him fall!”_

“You did not,” Thor murmurs firmly, “and I do understand.”  His eyes darken.  “I know how it feels to lose a brother to darkness.”

That cuts through the hysteria mounting inside him.  The storm quiets just a bit.  The pain doesn’t go away, not in the least, but the panic eases.  He holds Thor’s gaze, and Thor stares back, his lips tight in a frown, his eyes teeming with compassion.  His grip is firm but caring.  “I know how you feel, but you must listen to me now, Steve, and believe what I say.  It is not your fault that your enemies have done this to him.  You must not think that.  You must not condemn yourself.”

“SHIELD–”

“–was not what we hoped it was,” Thor finishes.  He lays a palm on Steve’s forehead and smooths back his sweaty, matted hair.  “We are not to blame for that.  We are not to blame for hoping there is good and honesty and integrity in the hearts of others.  And we are not to blame for things we cannot control.”

Steve chokes on his breath.  “You knew,” he gasps, twisting away.  “You knew!”

“It was baseless conjecture,” Thor counters gently, rubbing at Steve’s temple, “and fear and worry.  Nothing more.  It was unease wrought by loss and betrayal.  You did nothing wrong in serving SHIELD.  Had I been in your place, I would have done the same.  We trust those who lead us.  You couldn’t know the extent of this treachery.  You couldn’t know.”

“I should have!” Steve gasps.  That’s the only thing he can think.  “I should have seen it.  God, they were…  They had Bucky, and they were doing this to him – _hurting him_ – right under my goddamn nose!”

“Steve, you cannot–” 

“I need to go after him, Thor.”  Now he says it plainly.  The guilt’s rising, forcing the desperate words from him.  The pain should be enough to drag him down, should be enough to stop him, but it’s driving him instead.  He’s too anguished, too angry.  His fingers twine into Thor’s shirt.  “I – I need to get him back.  I need to find him.  I need to save him!”

“And you shall,” Thor promises.  “You will find him.  I know it.  But right now you need to rest.  You very nearly died.”

That’s not good enough.  “I can’t,” Steve moans, shuddering against the onslaught of agony.  There’s no reason to sleep, no reason to _stay here._   The doctors can’t help him any more than they have.  There’s nothing anyone can do for the pain, so why lay here and suffer?  _Get back up.  Go.  The pain’s not that bad._ The same mantra.  The same goddamn chant he tells himself.  Some part of him – the part that’s enraged and hating himself and desperate to make this right – is screaming it now, fighting to be heard above the storm inside him.  _Get up and fight.  The pain’s not that bad._

_Bucky needs you._

“He has nothing.”  The words come out in a wet sputter.  Steve twists again in the sheets.  His stomach and his shoulder and his leg.  He can almost _feel_ his body knit itself back together.  It’s never a terribly pleasant sensation, but it’s worse now for some reason.  It’s worse than being shot and stabbed and beaten in the first place.  It’s worse because he’s alive, and the serum’s thrumming powerfully inside him, saving him as it always does.  He’s goddamn Captain America, and he’s itching with restlessness, with energy and purpose.  The serum’s reviving him, bringing him back, like he’s some sort of immortal.  Like he can’t be marred, can’t be killed.  He always has the serum to protect him.

What does Bucky have to protect him?  What did Bucky have for _seventy years?_  A lifetime of suffering…  “They took him and they turned him into that… that _murderer…_   Thor, I can’t…”  He needs to go, to act, because _being_ Captain America means nothing if he can’t save Bucky.

“You cannot do anything about it right now,” Thor hushes again.  “Peace.  Be still.  You will harm yourself further.”

Steve can’t be still.  There is no peace.  He pants through clenched teeth, blinks through tears.  “He’s alone.  He’s alone!”

Thor sighs.  “And you are not,” he says, moving closer.  He gathers both Steve’s hands on his chest, carefully minding the bandages there and the IV lines in Steve’s arms. “I am here with you, and I am telling you that you must rest!”

Steve cries out.  Delirium takes him hard, wresting any cognizance and control from his mind, and he’s struggling to get away.  This isn’t a hospital room anymore.  It’s a prison, gray and awful and closing in on him, and ahead he can see Bucky.  Bucky’s standing there, mask jostled loose, a muzzle stripped from a dog.  He turns, stringy hair parting to show empty eyes that are devoid of anything meaningful.  He’s standing in the doorway, decked out in the gear of a black ops soldier, metal arm gleaming in the dim light.  He’s standing there, waiting.  “I – I have to get to him…”  Steve whispers.  “Have to.”

“Lay back,” Thor says.  “Not now.”

“N-no.  I gotta go now.  He’s right there.  He’s…”

“Steve, no–”

With what little strength he has, Steve wrests free and rolls to the side.  He surges forward.  Bucky’s still there, staring at him.  Accusations.  Pleas.  Every blink of Steve’s wide, teary eyes makes it change, and he can’t see straight, can’t think straight.  Before he even considers it, he’s scrambling out of bed.  He hears shouting, demands that he not do this, a panicked voice that seems so far away.  And he feels the pain get so much worse the instant he tries to stand, feels his stitches rip and his wounds reopen underneath his bandages and hospital gown.  It’s a burning flash, and the room spins and tips, and he can’t even take a step.  His knees buckle when his weight’s put on them, and down he goes.  The gleaming tiles of the cold, unforgiving floor race up to meet him.

Only he doesn’t hit them.  No, he falls forward into Thor’s arms.  Thor catches him, stops him from smacking face first into the ground.  And Thor’s embrace is warm and strong, and his chest is solid and firm, as Thor slowly eases his wheezing body down.

Steve chokes and squirms weakly against Thor’s hold.  “Stop this,” the demigod admonishes.  It’s not heated or angry, but it still hurts, and Steve can’t make himself submit.  “You are mad with the pain, mad with shock.  You must stop.”

He _can’t._   And he can’t see over Thor’s shoulder, can’t push himself up to get a view of where Bucky is.  _He’s not there._   Some part of him knows that Thor’s right.  He’s goddamn out of his mind, hallucinating and screwed up with trauma and agony.  Dissociating.  But he can’t stop.  “I gotta find him, Thor.  I gotta.”

“Not at the expense of your own safety,” Thor says, and he strengthens his hold around Steve’s body as though to remind him of who’s stronger.  Steve may be a super soldier, may be Captain America, but he’s not a god.  He’s _not_ immortal, and the serum has limits.  Thor sighs slowly, rubbing his back through the thin fabric of the hospital gown.  “You need to heal.  It may not have been his fault that you were hurt, but he still hurt you.”

Steve crumples at that awful truth.  He can’t get out what he wants to say.  Hell, he doesn’t even know what he wants to say.  He can’t deny what Thor’s saying.  He can’t.

“You should never have been left to face this alone.  The team should not have been allowed to fall apart.  We should have been there for you.”  Thor’s voice drops to a strained whisper.  “I should have been there.”

“Didn’t – didn’t want you in danger.  HYDRA was – was gonna kill so many people.  Didn’t want you in danger!”

Thor doesn’t respond to that.  He doesn’t dismiss Steve’s concerns or outright call them silly or stupid or foolish, even if they are.  And they are.  Thor’s the God of Thunder.  Does HYDRA pose any threat to him?  Could the Winter Soldier have done any damage to Thor?  Shot him and stabbed him and beaten him to within an inch of his life?  If Thor was there – if Thor could have been there – would _any_ of this have happened?

Would he have lost Bucky again?

Steve finally loses control of the sob in his throat.  It comes out choked.  “He’s – he’s all I have left.”  The words are a mangled whisper, and they hang in the silence.  All this misery inside him, the storm of anger and pain and grief, burns hot, hotter than his body can withstand right now.  _Even the serum has limits._

Thor finally relaxes against him.  His arms become less restraining and more embracing.  “You have me.”

The words don’t seem real for a moment, but they are, and they bring with them a sense of peace that seems impossible given all this pain and unrest.  Steve lets himself feel that.  _You have me._   He’s not sure he deserves that, not sure he deserves anything right now, but the second he hears it, he can’t let it go.  He latches onto it, holds it close, grabs tight and anchors himself.  The agony loses its strength.  It quiets enough for him to see the world.  It doesn’t go away, not by a longshot, but it _quiets._

And when Thor’s lips brush over his forehead, Steve’s eyes burn anew with tears.  He closes them tightly.  _I’m not alone._   He breathes.  _I’m not alone._

He’s barely aware as Thor gets him up and back onto the hospital bed.  It seems like any second the hospital staff will come barging, but they don’t.  There’s only Thor, and Thor lays him back down.  He never moves back, never lets his hands leave Steve for a second.  Steve pants in misery, shaking and sweating, as he gratefully settles back against his pillow.  Now he can feel just how weak he is, just how much he _needs_ the rest.  Thor looms over him and frowns when his gaze drops to Steve’s midsection.  “You are bleeding,” he comments, brushing his hand over the place where Steve’s hospital gown has ridden up and revealed the red soaked bandage.  Idly Steve realizes he’s not wearing any underwear, cold air brushing places it’s not supposed to touch, but Thor doesn’t seem to notice or think twice.  He’s pulls the blanket back up over him.  “Do you wish for me to call the nurses?”

“No,” Steve gasps.  He reaches up and takes Thor’s hand, desperate for more contact.  “No, ’m fine.  Serum’ll–”

“Yes, the serum will heal it,” Thor finishes, and it’s said somewhat long-suffering.  It seems more from the fact it’s true and that the truth of it perpetuates this situation.  He pulls the bandage loose to examine how bad the damage is, and then his jaw clenches and his eyes turn steely.

Steve can’t bear to look down and see the injury for himself, the place where the Winter Soldier pumped a bullet into his abdomen to stop him from putting an end to Project: Insight.  He can feel it though, imagine it, this pulsing, open place in his body, bloody and swollen and enflamed.  He feels Thor’s fingers lightly brush over the skin beside the wound, like he has in the past.  Like the gentle touch can be healing.  It always has been before.

But Steve’s terrified.  “Please…  Please don’t blame him,” he begs.  “Please…”

Thor sighs heavily, visibly deflating.  The soiled bandages should be changed, and Steve knows the wound should be stitched up again, serum or no.  However, Thor makes no effort to do anything other than put the pad back, settle the gauze into its proper position, and take up Steve’s hands again.  “Just sleep,” he implores again.  “I will watch over you.”

“Please…”

“I trust you, Steve,” Thor says, “and so I will trust what you say about him.  If you absolve him for his crimes, then I shall as well.”  Steve closes his eyes.  “Regardless, it’s of no matter now.  You need to sleep.”

Suddenly the pain rises up again, ripping free from whatever restraints that kept it still.  It cascades like a flood, spilling over itself and climbing higher and higher, and Steve feels like he’s going to be washed away.  “Can’t,” he whimpers, shaking against the misery.  “Can’t!”

Thor holds his hands tighter, coming as close as he can.  “You can,” he assures.  “You must.”

Steve shivers.  He’s never had trouble letting go before with Thor there, not since that first night that suddenly feels like a lifetime ago even if hardly a year has passed.  With the pain working him over so harshly, holding him captive, tormenting him like this…  He can’t ignore it, can’t forget it.  Can’t find even a shred of comfort now.  And he’s so goddamn ashamed of that, ashamed of everything.  “Thor,” he groans, twisting in the sheets again, frightened of what’s coming.  Of the long night ahead.  Over and over again, he’s told himself he can face pain, that pain is something that just passes.  _It’s not so strong.  Not so bad.  It’ll go away._

It’s not going away, and for the first time in forever, he’s really terrified.  “Thor, please…”

“I am here,” Thor says, brushing his hair back again.  “I am here, Steve, and I will not leave you.  We will get through this.  Together we can.”

He’s not so sure.  He wants to be.  Before they always have, but this…  This is the most hurt he’s ever been.  The lowest.  The most broken.  Even when the ice was rushing toward him, even when the water was pouring in the shattered cockpit, even when Bucky was punching him on the burning helicarrier…  It was easier then to ignore his body and his emotions and focus on what needed to be done.

Now there’s nothing but the pain.  “Scared,” Steve finally confesses.  Maybe that makes him a goddamn coward and the weakling he’s always been accused of being, but he can’t help it.  “’m scared.”

“You’ve no reason to be,” Thor swore softly.  “I swear to you.  Even the strongest warrior has his limits, and once they are breached, it is the duty of his friends and family to ease his burdens.”

“Thor…”

Thor’s thumb brushes away his wayward tears.  “I was not there for you when you needed.  I couldn’t protect you as I swore to myself that I would.  Let me protect you now.  Hold onto me, and we’ll fight this together.  The pain won’t defeat you.  I am here, and I won’t let it.”  Steve squirms, helpless and hapless, and Thor leans down.  He practically pulls Steve into his arms.  “Hold onto me.”

It hurts terribly, but Steve buries his sob in Thor’s shoulder and gets his arms around his back.  He balls his fists into the other’s shirt, squeezing, nearly ripping, _praying_ he can keep a tight enough grip not to be swept away in the hellfire racing towards him.  It doesn’t take long for the flames to burn away almost everything.  The delirium.  The memories and nightmares.  Even the damage done to his body and his soul.  Even Bucky.

But not Thor.  As the minutes trickle away, long minutes that bleed into longer hours, Thor stays.  Thor holds him, murmurs solace, comforts him through the worst throes of suffering.  Thor’s there.  He has Thor.  He always does.

He’s not alone.

* * *

_Reprieve_

Ultron nearly destroys the world.

And it’s their fault.

Well, to be fair, it’s Stark who made Ultron.  Stark designed it, created it, and used the Loki’s scepter (without the rest of the Avengers’ knowledge, consent, or blessing) to give it life.  Stark was the one who messed with something he doesn’t understand, who unleashed a homicidal robot on humanity.  All things considered, the loss of the city of Sokovia is a minor matter in comparison with the world-ending catastrophe they barely averted.  Ultron wanted the extinction of mankind, of every living thing on the planet, so the small number of dead (and the billions of dollars of damage.  And all those injured and traumatized and who’ve lost everything – not to forget _them_ ) should really indicate that today’s battle is a victory.  The Avengers evacuated everyone they could and stopped a city-sized swath of land from being disastrously slammed into the planet.  Ultron is dead, his dangerous intelligence wiped from the internet, wiped out everywhere.  His army of robots has been destroyed.  No mass human casualties.  It’s over, and earth is safe.  By all rights, it’s a goddamn triumph.

Steve can’t begin to feel like it is, though.  He can’t begin to quiet the emotions inside him, the guilt most of all, but the anger and the resentment and the frustration are loud as well.  He’s been trying his damnedest for days, ever since that ill-fated party celebrating the end of HYDRA’s evil, to curtail his feelings.  It’s not right to blame Stark.  The man did what he did to protect the world.  He was driven by good intentions.

But what’s that old saying?  _The road to hell is paved with good intentions._   God, he said as much to Tony just a couple days ago.  _Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die.  Every time._   But Tony didn’t listen.  Tony _never_ listens.  What the hell sort of team were they, where this kind of betrayal happens?  And maybe that’s too strong a word, but that’s what it damn well feels like.  _Betrayal._   Because Tony unilaterally made a decision, and now all their hands are covered in blood.

Steve’s hands are literally covered in blood.  He winces at the smear of it he leaves on door to the quarters to which he’s been assigned on the newly restored SHIELD helicarrier.  The blood’s probably his.  He’s pretty sure he was bleeding before.  A hunk of glass as long as his leg cut through his uniform during the end of the battle, when even he was feeling a little dazed and drunk from the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude.  His side hurts where it sliced into him, and he knows (yet again) that he’s lucky he wasn’t cut in half.  Some of the rest of the red coating his uniform is from other people, wounded civilians mostly.  And the Maximoff kid.  _God._   He closes his eyes and decides not to think about that right now.

Instead he gets himself inside the little gray box that passes for accommodations.  It’s hardly bigger than a storage closet, just large enough for a bunk, a footlocker, a closet, a desk, and a bathroom.  He’s seen more cramped and less ostentatious places during the war, slept in them in fact, and there’s a touch of a nostalgic feel to this.  Idly he marvels at that, that he’s become so accustomed to so much space and size and color that _this_ now feels a bit old and austere, and ironically this is the closest he’s really come to something that reminds him of home in years.

He pulls his shield off his back and sets the filthy, dusty disc to the floor.  Then he fumbles to reach the zippers, snaps, and enclosures for his uniform.  He’s tired and sore enough that it’s a bit of a challenge, but after a few seconds of struggling, grunting, and softly swearing, he manages to get his uniform top off.  A pang of pain shoots up his side, and he looks down after pulling his gloves off.  Sure enough, there’s a huge red stain on his flank.  Steve winces and gently probes at the gash.  It’s deep, but not so deep that the serum can’t handle it without stitches.  Actually it looks much worse than it hurts, which is a nice change of pace.  That means he can handle it, too.

But he feels utterly disgusting, inside and out.  Over the last few days, this feeling of… _uselessness_ has sunk its claws into him.  Ever since Wanda Maximoff got into their heads, dug around in things best left to silence and shadows, it’s been difficult to focus.  Steve knows that was the point of her psychic attack to begin with, to cut them at the core, to pray upon their insecurities and bring past pain to light.

It damn well worked.

 _“Captain America, God’s righteous man…  Pretending you can live without a war.”_   All over again he hears Ultron sneer that at him in a tone that too clearly resembles Stark’s.  And all over again he’s wandering through that ballroom in his service uniform, cameras flashing and wine spilling like blood and men wrestling and fighting and laughing and horns blaring and cymbals crashing and _it’s too close to the war–_

_“Are you ready for our dance?”_

Steve shakes himself free of it.  He doesn’t want to think about this, either.  Not how he felt at Clint’s farmhouse.  Not how much he realized in that moment that he doesn’t belong some place like that.  The quiet, simple life.  A home.  He can never have it.

“Goddamn it,” he whispers.  Peggy’s lost to him, withering away in a nursing home.  He still can’t find Bucky.  No matter how he tries to slice it, he feels utterly betrayed by Stark.  And this is their fault.  _Their fault._   They’re supposed to be different than SHIELD, better than SHIELD.  They’re supposed to learn from past mistakes.  And they’ve thrown it all away, lost everything.

 _Useless._ Living without a war, without a clear cause, without knowing who he’s supposed to be and having what he’s always stood for turned against him.  Yeah, this maybe seems like a victory, but it’s not.  It’s shaken all of them, who they are together and apart, to their very foundation.

_Useless and homeless._

“Goddamn it!” he hisses harshly, and he can barely stand how awful he feels.  Everything always comes with a price, victory most of all.  Steve’s not sure what’ll happen now, not to the Avengers or to the world, but whatever it is, he’s uneasy.  It seems like he’s been living some sort of dream, which is odd because the hell with SHIELD actually being HYDRA should have opened his eyes completely to the lies beneath the veneer of good.  He feels just a bit like Alice, still tumbling down the rabbit hole and wondering just how deep it can get.  Waking up seventy years in the future wasn’t unbelievable enough.  Neither was meeting the incredible people he now calls his friends and teammates.  Neither was learning that he died for nothing, that everything he thought he defeated lived on and grew back while he slept in the ice.  Neither was learning his best friend has been twisted and turned into his worst enemy.  Neither was watching a robot almost destroy the world on some deranged quest to fulfill what was supposed to be a mission to protect it.

It’s all so goddamn far-fetched that if he wasn’t actually living it, he wouldn’t come close to believing it.  And the rabbit hole goes down and down and _down_ …

Eventually – _eventually_ – he has to hit bottom.

Not now, though.  He gets control of his emotions, the simmering guilt and anger married with this dull, aching exhaustion, and peels off his sweat and blood soaked under armor.  Without another thought, he’s kicking off his boots, his pants, his boxers, and finding a towel.

The shower stall is barely big enough for him turn around in, which makes washing as much of a figurative pain as it is a literal one.  Still, he gets the job done, scrubs off dried blood and stale sweat and dirt as careful of his plethora of cuts, bruises, and welts as he can be.  The soapy water is tinged with mud and red as it runs down the drain at his feet.  He tries not to pay attention, and he doesn’t really linger, even though the hot water feels good.  He just gets the job done so he can move onto the next thing, because as much as it seems like it is, the shower’s not really washing away any of his problems.  There’s still proverbial blood all over his hands.  There’s still a splintered and damaged team to lead.  There’s moral and ethical damage he can’t begin to process.  And Fury will probably want a debrief on the battle, and there’s so much clean-up to do, and there’s going to be a hell of a large fallout from this, and no one’s sure what happened with the Hulk, and…  This goes on and on and on, too.

When he’s done, he just wants to sleep.  But he hardly gets a chance to so much as glance at the bunk before there’s a knock at the door.

Steve’s pulling on a clean pair of boxers as he hears it.  He’s so tired he considers not answering it, but that takes him back, back three years ago when every day was a struggle to adjust, and he knows who it is instantly.  He crosses the meager distance to the door with one big step and pulls it open, not registering until after the fact that he’s standing there essentially naked aside from his underwear.

He doesn’t care.  Thor’s right where he expected him to be, looking more battle-worn and bedraggled than Steve ever remembers him being before.  He’s dirty, still a little wet from his fall into the lake, bruised and banged up.  His face is dark and filled with emotion, pain and anger most of all.  He’s tense, wound tight, like this time he’s the one who can’t unwind after the battle.  Maybe they both are, because the dark storm Steve sees in Thor’s eyes all too closely mirrors the one inside himself.

They don’t speak, which is strange.  They just stare at each other for what feels like the longest time, and the air feels charged between them, laden with something potent and inclement.  Like lightning trapped in a bottle, fizzing and sparking and aching to be free.

Then Steve steps aside and lets Thor through, and Thor comes right in.  Steve closes the door behind them.  “Are you okay?” he asks, turning to face the other man.  “When Stark said you fell in the lake, I–”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish.  Thor’s grabbing him and hauling him into his embrace.  Steve stiffens but only out of surprise before readily succumbing.  He throws his arms around Thor, hugging back just as hard even though it jostles his wounds and dirties his clean skin.  Thor’s fingers are pressed roughly into his shoulder blades, and he’s touching, _clinging,_ like he’s assuring himself of something.  Steve lets him.  God, he didn’t know how much he needed this until now, and he needs it like he needs air.  Needs to know that the others – that _Thor_ – is okay.  Thor was in so much danger, facing Ultron head-on like he did, working with Stark and Vision to stop the catastrophe of the city plummeting back to earth…  Steve’s not used to worrying about him, but he did this time.  This time, with them all so off-kilter, the stakes seemed so much higher.

Still, Thor appears alright.  Physically, anyway.  Even a homicidal computer with boundless resources didn’t do much damage to him.  Emotionally, though… “Are _you_ okay?” he asks Steve, breathless and wide-eyed all the sudden.

Steve nods.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I’m fine.  Usual bumps and bruises.”  Thor glances down.  Of course he immediately spots the gash in Steve’s side.  Steve reaches over to the bunk and quickly grabs his discarded towel, covering up the injury.  “It’s fine.  You know it is.”

Surprisingly, Thor lets the issue go without too much of a struggle.  That more than anything is a sign that he’s troubled, which makes sense, of course.  He has been since he left Clint’s farmhouse on a quest for answers.  Steve doesn’t know where he went exactly or what specifically he found.  With everything that’s happened, they haven’t had time to talk, not more than a few rushed words here and there.  Ever since the party, Thor’s been burdened, angry at Stark, at the situation in which they’ve been thrust.  Steve can’t blame him, but expressing all that frustration and anger at the time wasn’t wise, so he stepped in and tried to calm his friend for the sake of keeping the team functional and getting the problem solved.

Now he only wants to help Thor _._   Steve can see him struggling, see his emotions tear at him.  “The, um…”  Thor sniffles and respectfully puts some distance between them.  That distance feels very far and cold, and Steve aches just a bit.  He goes to find some pants and a shirt.  “I came to get you.  There is much to do.  Fury is calling for some sort of meeting.”  Thor huffs, and Steve sees him shaking his head out of the corner of his eye.  “Though for what purpose, I cannot say.  The damage has been done.”

Steve doesn’t say anything to that.  Thor’s utterly right, and he knows it down in his bones.  There’s no sense in offering up optimism or trying to sugar-coat this.  To begin with, he doesn’t have it in him, and on top of that Thor deserves better than some sort of placating drivel.  He just stands there, holding his clothes but not making much of an effort to get them on.  Thor’s looking out the small, lone window of Steve’s cabin, at the last hints of day washing over the mountains and forests of Sokovia.  Even in the dim illumination, the hole in the earth where there once was a city is striking.  The lines of Thor’s shoulders tense up even more.  “Stark has betrayed us all.”

Again, Steve says silent.  He can’t – won’t – argue with that.  A minute shudder works down Thor’s frame.  He exhales slowly, shaking his head seemingly to himself.  “This should never have happened.  We should _never_ have tried to use something we do not understand.”

“I know,” Steve softly agreed.

“Evil begets evil.”  The words are quiet and low.  Solemn.  As fatigued and defeated as Steve feels.  For a second it seems Thor won’t say anything further, and Steve sticks his legs into some SHIELD-issue track pants.  The sight and feel of them takes him back just a year ago, when he was jogging around DC every morning at dawn and totally oblivious to just how black and corrupt things truly are.  _Ignorance is bliss._   That bitter thought is not at all his style, and he feels ashamed to have it, but he can’t completely banish it.  Not right now.  Not with Thor darkly brooding like this and Steve himself wondering if there’s anything he can do or say to make this better.

It’s not likely.  “Do you…”  He needs to ask the question he should have asked after Africa or at Clint’s, the one he should have insisted Thor answer at the time.  He’s still not sure how it’s relevant, but it set so much of this into motion, made Thor trust Vision, drove him to fight.  Burdens him now.  “Do you want to talk about what you saw?”  Steve doesn’t come any closer, and though there’s hardly more than a couple feet between them, it feels like miles.

And the silence feels unbreakable.  Steve holds his breath as it stretches on.  “Thor, what did Maximoff show–”

“Death,” Thor says.  He turns, and all the sudden all the anger is gone from his face.  There’s nothing but weariness.  Deadened fear.  His dirty hair is limp on his shoulders, loose from its binding at the back.  He’s bent like the mere weight of his cape is too much for him.  “Death and destruction.  Darkness.  All of Asgard laid to waste.  My home…  Burning.”  He closes his eyes.  “Burning, and I am to blame.”

This makes sense, explains why Thor’s acted as he did.  Steve opens his mouth to say something only again he doesn’t know what.  He just wants to comfort Thor somehow, console him.  Get him to _seek_ comfort for himself for once.  “Thor, that’s not…  It wasn’t real.  You know she was trying to get to us, to all of us.  You wouldn’t do anything to threaten your people.”

“Of course not,” Thor says tautly, “but am I doing enough to protect them?”

Steve can’t stand that, not from Thor, Thor who has done nothing but care for and protect _him_ from the get go.  Thor who’s _here,_ fighting humanity’s battles for no other reason than allegiance.  Steve knows Thor internalizes a great deal, blames himself for Loki’s invasion.  He’ll blame himself for this too, no matter what he says about Tony.  The gregarious nature, the cool confidence that sometimes borders on arrogance, the laid-back attitude about this world and his place in it…  It’s a self-defense mechanism, the same as Steve’s own refusal to bleed on anyone for fear of becoming a burden.  Steve’s not so blind as to not see that.  “You’re doing everything you can to protect _everyone_.”

Thor turns to him at that, blue eyes open and seeking.  Steve can clearly see the doubt and pain now.  “That sense of disquiet I’ve known off and on since Mother died…  I fear we have not begun to see the extent of the darkness ahead.”

Steve shakes his head.  “You don’t know that.”

“No,” Thor agrees.  “But I cannot ignore what my heart is telling me, either.  Perhaps doing so is what has caused my insecurities to become so powerful that the Scarlet Witch could use them against me as she did…”  His eyes glaze as he considers that.  “I have been gone from Asgard for too long.”

Steve’s own sense of foreboding stirs.  Thor has been on earth for more than a year now.  Ever since SHIELD fell and the Avengers reformed to eradicate the last strongholds of HYDRA, he’s been with the team.  Stalwart and steadfast, he’s fought for mankind.  He’s worked tirelessly to correct humanity’s mistakes.

And he’s been at Steve’s side.  Gone are the easier days where they played and joked and laughed and learned together.  Their friendship has changed as they’ve changed, grown quieter and softer.  More subdued.  Filled with silent devotion and loyalty.  It’s probably strange to think about it this way, considering Thor’s an immortal demigod and Steve’s nearly a hundred years old, but they’ve matured, moving past simply adapting to this world and now trying to face its challenges together head on.  Thor’s even helped Steve search for Bucky as Steve’s led the team in the hunt for Loki’s stolen scepter.

The scepter that’s now caused so much misery.  Steve can’t consider what Thor’s implying, that he’s going to leave, that he _must_ go.  He can’t fathom Thor being gone, even if just a few days back he was about to return the scepter to Asgard.  He would have come back then, though, and none of this anguish was complicating matters those few days ago.  None of these veiled and mysterious threats loomed in the shadows, or if they did they were too amorphous and ill-defined to matter.  No, Thor would have taken the scepter home and then returned to earth.  He would have stayed with Steve, fought right alongside Steve, _helped_ Steve as he _always_ does…

The thought of that changing is more than upsetting.  Steve shakes his head, reaching out a hand to grasp Thor’s shoulder.  “Thor–”

“What did she make you see?”

The quiet question seems to come from nowhere.  Just like that, the conversation shifts back to Steve and his hurts, just as it always does.  Steve’s so overthrown he lets that happen.  “I…”

Thor turns to him more fully, and the broken, beaten, estranged prince has once again been replaced with the tender, confident caregiver.  “What did you see?”

It’s right in front of him again.  He’s tired of thinking about it, tired of _feeling_ it.  It’s been such a goddamn challenge to keep it all down, to be strong for the rest of the team.  Stark thinks he doesn’t have a dark side?  That things don’t make him hurt?  _Bullshit._   Steve sighs and turns away, hating the bitterness.  “Nothing I haven’t already seen.”  Peggy in that blue dress, soft and sweet in his arms.  Bucky smiling and throwing an arm over his shoulders as they walk home from Ebbet’s Field.  The Howling Commandos and Colonel Phillips and Howard Stark.  The world he left behind.  “Nothing I haven’t already lost.”

 _Home._   No matter what he does or how hard he tries, this place, _this_ world, still never feels like home.

Thor says nothing for what seems like a long time.  Steve feels dead inside, and it seems Thor’s much the same.  Hollowed out and sucked dry.  Too hurt and humbled to fight anymore.  Then Thor’s large hand comes to close over the meat his shoulder.  “At least allow me to bandage it,” Thor murmurs.

Steve sighs.  “What about the debrief?”  _And everything else.  SHIELD and the team and the fallout and the threats out there and the clean-up and Bucky and–_

“It can wait.”

Steve turns to Thor, and immediately things feel… not better exactly but more distant.  Maybe it’s selfish to take this moment, but the second he nods, and Thor smiles softly the same way he has so many times in the past with the same warmth and compassion and understanding in his eyes, there’s no denying the need for comfort.  Thor’s need to give it.  Steve’s need to receive it.  Their need for each other, this one constant in a world that never ceases to change.

They find a first aid kit in his bathroom.  Obviously someone stocked the room, given the change of clothes and other toiletries and towels, and that someone thought ahead to Steve tending to his wounds in private.  Maybe Fury’s behind it?  Steve doesn’t know or care; he’s just glad they have what they need.  He stands beside the bunk, and Thor sits on the mattress.  They don’t talk.  There’s no need to.  Thor’s applying senseless antiseptic as he always does and pressing a pad to the laceration before wrapping gauze around Steve’s ribs.  Steve watches him work, feels them both go through this ritual.  It’s become so cathartic.  Not for the first time Steve wonders if anyone besides him truly sees Thor, sees this part beneath all the other façades and veneers.  Beneath the prince who wouldn’t be king, beneath the warrior, beneath the teammate and Avenger, beneath the god.  These gentle hands and caring touches and soft, appreciative eyes.  As he stands there and lets Thor tend to his wounds, his wounds that don’t _need_ any more tending now than they ever have, he feels a little proud of the fact that he has _this._   That _he_ sees Thor in a way that no one else does.

This time, like every time before it, it’s a little dizzying.

When Thor’s finished, he looks up at Steve.  “You will find him,” he says.  Steve’s been drifting in his head too much to realize he’s talking about Bucky at first.  “You will get him back, and when you do, you’ll reclaim that part of you.  What she showed you isn’t necessarily the truth.”

Steve gives a little smile.  “I said that to you.  I’ll say it again.”

Thor’s lips quirk into a small grin of their own.  “Go ahead.”

But Steve doesn’t say it, because he’s not sure it’s true now.  He’s not sure there isn’t some bigger threat out there.  He’s not sure Asgard’s safe.  He’s not sure earth’s safe, either.  He’s not sure of _anything_ anymore, to be frank, and he doesn’t have the knowledge to guess one way or another.  Instead he sits next to Thor on the bunk.  The exhaustion comes back hard, and he closes his eyes.  “I don’t…”  The weight of it all crushes him down.  “I don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t know how to handle this.  I never have.”

“You will handle it because you must,” Thor answers.

It seems so simple.  Steve’s Captain America.  Therefore, he must have the answers.  That’s what Captain America does.  _Lead.  Know the correct path.  Make the right decisions._   “You know what I miss about Brooklyn sometimes?”  They’re shoulder to shoulder, but Thor turns to look at him.  “Life was just… simpler.  Living in the city can be so noisy, and where I lived we were practically on top of each other.  The walls were so thin, you could hear everything.  People talking and laughing and arguing and crying.  It was just this constant level of sound.”  Steve thinks about it.  The streets around their neighborhood.  The sputtering of engines and the chatter of pedestrians.  Honking horns and crackling radios and people moving and working and living.  Chaotic and random and dangerous yet so vibrant.  That’s one thing that’s the same between then and now.

He pulls himself away from the memories.  “The top of our old building, though…  You could go up there, and it was surprisingly quiet.  I never figured out why, but the noise just didn’t reach there like it got everywhere else.  It was like this little pocket of peace.  And you could see a lot from up there.  Our building was one of the tallest ones around, so the view was really spectacular.  On a clear day, you could even see the bridge, see Manhattan…  I spent a lot of time up there drawing.  Learned a lot about perspective.”  _Literally and figuratively._   He sighs again.  “More than a couple times, Bucky and I snuck up there.  He’d steal a beer from his pop, and we’d sit there and share it and watch the sun set over the city…  Felt like we had the whole world in front of us.”

 _The world._   He remembers that so clearly, this exciting feeling of hope and promise.  Even as small and sick and poor as he was, he never felt like he was doomed.  He never felt like he had no hope.  There’d always be a way to get by, and there’d always something he could do, something he could contribute.  He was a young man on the verge of adulthood with the bright future right in front of him.

“Then my mother died.  And then the war broke out and Bucky got drafted…  And everything just narrowed.  I always wanted to honor my father, and I figured that if everyone else was going off to fight, I couldn’t do any less than that.  My life wasn’t worth any more or less, no matter if I was too sick to serve.  So I tried and tried to enlist.  Tried to go off and do my part, and…  Thor, I had no idea.  I had _no idea_ that when Doctor Erskine chose me for Project: Rebirth that I’d end up being Captain America.  That I’d end up _here,_ and I…  God, I don’t know anymore.  I wanted to be a soldier.  I wanted to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves, to fight for what’s right, and I can’t _see_ what that is anymore.  I can’t trust, not SHIELD, not the government, not even my own teammates.  You’re right; this should _never_ have happened, and I can’t–”

“Don’t,” Thor hushes.  He puts his arm around Steve and pulls him closer.  “Don’t.  You will handle it because you must.”

Saying it again doesn’t make him feel any more certain.  He’s lost faith in his own capacity to lead after this.  “Christ, Thor, I’m not–”

“You are.”  Thor tucks him into his side, and Steve exhales shakily, so grateful for his sturdy strength.  Thor’s voice drops low.  “You are worthy.  I am certain of that, Steve.  You are the worthiest of anyone else I have ever known.  I _saw_ it.” 

Steve’s not quite sure what Thor’s means.  It seems more specific that Thor consoling him with some sort of abstract faith in his abilities.  “Thor, I don’t…”

“You are not what they made you to be.  You are who you’ve always been.  Capable.  Strong.  Smart.  You can rise above this.”  Thor’s lips brush against his hair, and Steve closes his eyes.  “We both can.  And we are both worthy.”

 _Worthy._   The word settles into his heart, and it feels good.  Weighty but powerful.  He lets it sink in, and his fatigue pulls him down with it.  They sit in silence for some time, the helicarrier humming all around them.  Seconds turn to minutes.  Minutes and minutes, and they slip away.  Steve feels himself drifting.  The awful feeling’s quieter, but the exhaustion is very strong.

Thor shifts suddenly, and Steve snaps away.  Apparently he’s been dozing.  “Sorry,” he gasps.  He rubs at his eyes.  “Damn it.  We really should go.  They’re probably waiting for us.”

But Thor’s not getting up.  He’s moving, shedding his cloak and his armor right before Steve’s bleary eyes.  He watches in shock, the impressive muscles of Thor’s chest and back flexing entrancingly as he undresses.  Steve doesn’t have a clue what he’s intending until Thor’s pulling back the blanket on the bunk and climbing in.  He boldly presses himself to the bulkhead and then holds the blanket up, revealing the spot right next to him in a very clear invitation.  Steve’s mouth drops open in surprise, and he shakes his head.  “Thor, we need to–”

“They can wait,” Thor says again, and he smiles.

Steve just watches a moment more, shocked beyond the pale.  Then he’s moving without a thought, gingerly sliding his sore body into the bunk.  Thor puts his arms around him after pulling the blanket up over them both.  It’s ridiculous as hell, two men of their size crammed together on this tiny bed, but they make it work.  Steve’s bare back is flush to Thor’s chest, and Thor’s arm around his waist.  Steve can feel him breathe, practically feel his heart beat.  He’s hot and strong, and Steve feels small again.  Small and protected.  _Safe._

They both sleep peacefully, wrapped up in each other.

Two days later at a new facility in upstate New York, Thor’s leaving for Asgard.  Steve watches, battling so many difficult emotions but somehow managing to keep himself in check, his face stoic and his voice level.  Thor promises to come back with information, and his eyes linger on Steve before the Bifrost blasts color all around him and takes him back to his own world.

After that, Steve’s telling Tony that he’s okay.  That he’s home in this new facility, with a new set of Avengers, fighting this war that changes all the time but never ends.  He’s home.

He wants to believe it.

* * *

_Realization_

In the end, Steve loses everything.

_Everything._

The tense air between Stark and him that’s been there from the first day they met finally escalates until there’s no going back.  Steve never wanted it to come to this.  He respects Stark, wants to be Stark’s friend, but he can’t be when Tony makes decisions that impact the team without his knowledge.  First Ultron.  Then going to Ross and tying the Avengers’ hands with the Sokovia Accords.  It was either sign the document and face oversight by a governing body (and Steve’s been burned by that before – how could Tony not _see_ that?) or retire.  For a moment, in the wake of finally losing Peggy and with Sam at his side gently offering his advice, Steve considered it.  Giving up his place as the leader of the Avengers.  Quitting this life.  It’s only been five years or so since he became Captain America (in his mind anyway), but it feels like a lifetime, one filled with pain more than anything else.  Pain and loss.  The quiet life seemed like a good place to start again.  Figure out who he is without the mask and the shield and the symbol.  Live in peace.  Find a true home.

But then he finds Bucky instead, and it all falls apart.

It’s late, late enough that it can probably be called morning.  There’s rain outside, thunder and lightning, and Steve’s never been scared of storms before.  Tonight he is.  This little hotel room he has is godawful, run-down with ripped curtains, stained carpets, and a bed that looks beaten to hell and back.  It’s smaller than his old, _old_ apartment in Brooklyn.  Not the one SHIELD gave him.  _His_ apartment.  He can hardly picture it now; his memories after the serum are so sharp, but those that came before…  They’re fading with time.  Still, as small and dingy as his old apartment was, he recalls it always felt safe.  This place isn’t that.  This place seems as broken down and battered as he feels.

He locks the door the instant he gets inside and quickly draws the curtains.  This section of Mogadishu doesn’t seem to be the safest, but it’s not as if he had a great deal of time and choice with Ross’ thugs on his tail constantly.  The instant he left Wakanda they were all over him.  He’s not sure how they found him so fast; he knows T’Challa would never betray him, but he supposes it’s only obvious and logical, with the power the US Government has, that it wouldn’t take them long at all to search the world over for him.  Maybe going to Wakanda was too obvious and logical too, and Steve worries yet again for Bucky.  He has to trust T’Challa to keep Bucky safe because there’s nothing he can do now.

 _Nothing._   He has a few hundred dollars in his wallet, a bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush, and a gun.  That’s it.  That’s all he was able to gather before he and Sam were made just outside the city.  He told Sam to run; there was no sense in his friend being imprisoned _yet again_ because of him.  Sam argued and shouted and got angry, but eventually he acquiesced.  There wasn’t much choice.  They were more of a target together than apart, and Steve was adamant that he not risk himself further. 

Hopefully Sam got away.  Steve led the bastards on a wild goose chase through Mogadishu before finally losing them in a dark, twisty neighborhood.  They got close enough for a skirmish, and there were enough of them that they landed a few nasty hits on him.  Apparently they have orders to bring him in alive, though not necessarily uninjured.  Plus _not_ killing or seriously wounding any of them hampered Steve’s ability to fight back, which resulted in an array of nasty cuts, deep bruises, and a load of road burn from where they shot his bike out from under him.  He’s goddamn lucky to be alive.

 _Lucky._   How many times has he thought that over the last few years?  He’s _lucky_ to be alive, lucky not to be frozen in the arctic.  Lucky not to be in federal prison (and he has not a single doubt Ross is after _him_ specifically to get the super soldier serum).  He’s lucky to be here in this shitty hotel room, sore and filthy.  He’s lucky to be on the run, alone and with no place that’s safe.  He’s lucky.

_The pain’s not that bad._

He’s so angry he can’t barely stop himself from putting his fist through the window.  It’s taken more restraint and control than ever before these last days to keep his emotions in check, and he’s tired of the charade.  He’s not okay.  He’s so screwed up now – _fucked up beyond all recognition_ – that he can’t even let go when he’s alone.  So he backs away after mindlessly and automatically scanning the stormy street for signs of danger.  Then he dumps his backpack to the bed and hunts around for a towel with which he can dry himself.  He doesn’t find one.  Of course not.  Shaking with what he idly recognizes as shock, he strips off his jacket.  There’s a soft thud, and he looks down to see the flip phone he bought – one of a pair – has fallen out of his pocket.  He stares at it where it rests on the ruined carpet, stares blankly and emptily.  Just like that, all his anger is gone again.  He knows why.

That’s it.  That’s his only link to the life he used to have.  A cheap, outdated piece of plastic.  This is all that’s left, and the sudden numbness is so encompassing that he can’t see beyond it, can’t _feel_ beyond it.  _Pick it up. Keep going._   He doesn’t bend down, doesn’t do a thing to collect the phone.  In fact, he doesn’t move at all.  He’s dripping rainwater to the floor.  There’s a soft gasp, one and then another and then another, and he reaches up a hand to wipe at his cheeks.  Those aren’t tears.  _It doesn’t hurt.  It doesn’t hurt.  It doesn’t–_

There’s a knock at the door.

Steve jolts.  The terror that goes through him is harsh and cold, and for a second he freezes.  Then he gets a hold of himself, puts the phone away and pulls the gun from the back of his jeans where it’s hidden under his shirt, and rushes on silent footfalls to the door.  He can’t make himself breathe.  _God, how did they find me already?  I know I lost them.  I know it!_

But then he realizes he’s being monumentally stupid.  Why the hell would Ross’ thugs have the courtesy to knock?

And then comes the call.  It’s soft, careful, guarded, but certain and very, very familiar.  “Steve?  Steve, can you open the door?”  The knob rattles.  “Please…”

It’s Thor.

He can hardly believe it.  It doesn’t seem real – _possible_ – that Thor could be here of all places, that he could _find_ him here.  Steve hasn’t heard from him in months, almost a year in fact, since he left for Asgard after Sokovia.  Thor can’t have any idea about what’s happened, about the Accords and the team fracturing and finding Bucky…  Steve finds he doesn’t care.  He’s unlocking and yanking open the door.

And Thor’s there.  He’s soaked through in the rain, wearing jeans and a jacket with its hood up.  He looks strange like that, so much so that Steve wonders for a moment if he’s been tricked, if he’s made a mistake and blundered into some sort of trap.

But his paranoia is unwarranted.  Thor pushes inside the tiny hotel room without an invitation, dragging Steve with him and shoving the door firmly shut behind him.  Steve gasps, struggles even a little – _what the hell is the matter with me?_ – and then Thor’s hugging him.  Hugging him hard.  “I was so frightened,” he whispers into Steve’s shoulder.  The pressure of his embrace would probably kill a normal person.  As it stands, between that and his shock Steve can barely breathe.  “I thought the worst!”

Steve doesn’t understand.  “You–”

Reluctantly Thor pulls away.  He grasps Steve’s face.  Wet, stringy tendrils of blond hair escape the hood to frame his face, and his eyes are absolutely frantic.  “Are you well?  Are you?”

“I’m…”  He can’t begin to answer that.  He feels like if he has to lie, he’ll just break completely.  “How did you find me?”

Thor doesn’t let go of Steve’s face.  “I have been watching you from afar.”  Steve’s brow furrows in confusion.  “Heimdall can see everything, and he told me of the conflict you faced, that the team’s been divided and you fought amongst yourselves, that you and Stark–”

A gunshot cracks through the night.  It’s outside, but it’s close enough that it’s extremely startling, and Steve ducks before scrambling to the window.  He tightens his grip on his own gun.  Someone’s screaming – a woman – and he peers around the side of the curtain, keeping himself hidden in the shadows as he frenetically scans the street.  There’s no sign of Ross’ men.  Of course, there could be _other_ people hunting him rather than just the black ops group he just avoided.  Ross clearly sent them directly; they have US military written all over them.  Still, he would likely cast his net wide.  Before Steve and Sam left Wakanda, T’Challa warned him there may be a bounty on his head (and he suspected Ross is behind it, though there’s of course no way to prove it).  For all Steve knows, _anyone_ could be after him.

It doesn’t seem like this particular incident has anything to do with him, though.  Shadows shaped like men slip and dart along the poorly lit street and into the buildings around them, but none come his way.  Hypervigilance and fear has him watching longer than he probably needs to, but he can’t stop.  It’s goddamn _terrifying,_ how quickly _this_ response has been engrained into him.  A few weeks on the run, and he feels nothing like man he used to be.

He’s not anything anymore.

“Steve.”  A hand brushes his shoulder.

Steve jerks, shock coursing over him in icy waves, and whips up the gun.  He can’t stop himself in time, can’t stop this awful feeling out being out of control from seizing him.  Thor’s right behind him, staring in shock as the barrel ends up pointed at his face.

_Oh, God._

They stare at each other, and the alarm slowly slips from Thor’s eyes.  Steve’s hand doesn’t shake, but inside panic leaves him horrified.  _Oh, God!_ However, before he can move, Thor’s very calmly reaching up and wrapping his fingers around the gun.  Gently he pulls it away, and Steve lets it go.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.  “Christ Almighty…  I’m so sorry!”

To that Thor says nothing.  He’s unfazed, undaunted despite what just happened, and he sets the gun to the little, nicked nightstand beside the bed.  Steve’s shaking now, the hints of a panic attack clawing at his resolve.  He doesn’t know what to say, other than what he ends up saying.  The words spill from his lips without thought.  “You shouldn’t be here!  You shouldn’t have come!”

Thor stares at him.  There’s pain all over his face.  “Tell me what happened.”

“You need to get the hell away from me,” Steve says, barely holding back his emotions.  “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I should never have left,” Thor retorts instead, and there’s a rougher edge to his voice, like he won’t stand for lies or dismissals.  “Tell me what happened.”  Steve shakes his head.  He can’t.  He can’t acknowledge the loss, the fear and anger and bitterness.  The pain.  If he does…

Thor’s angry visage softens.  “Tell me,” he orders.

“Everything fell apart,” Steve says.  He rakes hands through his wet hair, sinking against the wall behind him beside the window.  “It all just…”  _It’s gone._

A tense frown takes Thor’s face again.  “What did Stark do?”

Suddenly Steve’s too tired to be angry.  That feeling of being beyond control makes his skin itch.  “It wasn’t…  He did what he thinks is best.”

“As with Ultron?”

“I…”  There’s no sense in going over it again.  He’s thought about it, turned it around and around in his head, for days and days.  No matter what he does, he can’t see a way to resolve anything that happened.  There’s nothing but _should haves._   So damn many of them.  They should have talked more and listened to each other.  Tony should have come to him with his concerns about oversight, not gone above his head to Ross.  Tony should have given him a chance.  Tony should have controlled himself better, been more rational.

And Steve should have let himself see that Bucky killed Tony’s parents.  He should have figured it out and told Tony when he did.  _He should have._

But neither of them did.  And now there are no Avengers.  There is no Captain America.  There’s just this goddamn cell of a motel room, small and dirty and gray, and he’s trapped just as sure as he would have been if those bastards caught him or if Tony and the others arrested him in Leipzig.  None of it – the fight and his opinions and his efforts to do the right thing – _none_ of it made a damn bit of difference.

And that’s not even the worst of it.  “I let Bucky go.”

The soft words spill from his lips, and they seem to echo through the room.  The shame Steve feels for everything that’s happened…  It’s like poison inside him.  He can’t make himself meet Thor’s gaze.

And Thor’s staring at him.  “You…  You let him go?  After all this time?”

Steve closes his eyes.  He can still smell the clean air of the medical bay, fresh with a slight sterile, antiseptic tang to it.  He can still see the white all around him, the white of the tile, of the hospital beds, of the walls.  Of Bucky’s loose-fitting clothes.  He can still taste the blood.  He was biting the inside of his cheek so hard, fighting to simply let it all happen, to _let go,_ because that was what Bucky wanted.  “I finally found him.  Well, to be fair, it seems like someone made sure I found him.  And made sure Tony and he and I ended up alone together, chasing down the last of HYDRA’s super soldiers…  This monumental threat to the world.  For a second there…”  Immediately Steve’s eyes burn with tears.  “For a second, I thought it’d all be okay.  We could make this work.  The Accords, Ultron, the hurt feelings, the things we said to each other…  None of that mattered, because we were side by side.  Tony and Bucky and me.  And I thought I could get Tony to understand about what HYDRA did to Bucky, get him to accept him, because Tony’s a good man, and he’s my friend, and we’re teammates and we _trust_ each other, and I thought…”

The burning gets worse.  Wetness trickles down his cheek.  He can’t stop it now.  “What I thought wasn’t worth a damn.  There was no threat, at least nothing beyond the three of us and the past.  The goddamn _past._   The people who were hurt.  All the people Bucky killed.  He killed Tony’s parents.”  He can hardly see through the tears, at least nothing but blurry shadows.  In his mind’s eye, though, this is so clear, too.  The grainy video.  The car slamming into the telephone pole on a dark December night.  Howard Stark begging for his life.  Maria Stark choking.  Bucky _murdering them_.

And the pain on Tony’s face.  The betrayal in his eyes.  Steve knows he’ll never forget it.

Thor frowns.  He doesn’t say anything for a long moment as the full extent of the situation becomes clearer.  “I am sorry,” he finally murmurs.

Steve snaps from his memories.  He sniffles, wiping at his leaking eyes.  “Anyway, Stark lost it completely.  I don’t know that I blame him for it, but I can’t forgive him, either.  He didn’t listen, didn’t even try to understand, _didn’t stop._   Beat the hell out of both us, and I beat him back, barely stopped him from killing Bucky, maybe killing me too, and–”

“Steve–”

“I quit.”

Thor winces.  “You…  You quit?”

Steve tries to bolster himself against the pain.  Tries and fails.  His voice cracks.  “I gave it all up.  Dropped the shield.  Walked away.”  Thor’s silent.  Steve’s too afraid to look at him, too terrified to see what he’s thinking.  He goes on, tries to explain the unexplainable.  “Before Bucky came back, I was considering it.  Stepping down and letting Tony take over.  Retiring.  This whole thing…  It’s not what I thought it was.  And I was figuring… maybe without Captain America, I can get back something I lost.  Figure out who I am again.  Maybe find where I belong.  Start over.  And then I found Bucky, and for the first time in forever, I thought there was a chance to get just a piece of it back.”  He can’t even bring himself to think about it, the extent of what he’s lost all over again.  He shakes his head.  “But Bucky chose to go back under.  He was too afraid someone else would get a hold of him, turn him back into a weapon, so he wanted…  He wanted to…”

“Sit,” Thor says, and he’s suddenly right in front of Steve, grasping his shoulders.  “Sit, Steven.”

The next thing Steve knows he _is_ sitting, sitting on the old, noisy bed, and Thor’s right in front of him.  Like _so many_ times in the past, Thor is there, eyes bright in the darkness.  “You’re shivering.  Let me get you out of these wet clothes.”

Thor does.  Frankly Steve checks out for most of it.  He’s numb again, numb and slipping and sliding away, as Thor works his jacket off.  Thor unlaces his boots and pulls them away next.  Steve wavers, hardly breathing, every scrape and cut and bruise on his body bright spots of hurt in a dull landscape of exhaustion.  Thor stands and tugs his shirt off, and even the warm air is too cold, too awful against his skin.  He trembles, and Thor moves faster, reaching for his belt and undoing the buckle.  He pops the button on Steve’s dirty jeans and unzips the fly before dragging the wet, muddy denim off his legs.  Then he’s stripping off his own sodden jacket and t-shirt before wrapping Steve up in his arms.  “Easy,” he whispers.  He rubs Steve’s bare back.  “Easy…”

Steve groans.  Thor’s so warm and strong, _always_ so warm and strong, and somehow feeling that, a goddamn _hug_ after losing so much…  It cracks him right at the foundation of his soul, and the wall he has that keeps everything _back_ crumbles completely, the fissures spiderwebbing so fast that it’s dizzying.  “He left me,” he gasps.  There are sobs coming, harsh and hot, and he just can’t hold them back anymore.  His words are coming faster too, twisted and strained.  “He left me!  After everything, after what I sacrificed and how hard I fought, I just thought…  I had him back.  _Finally_ I had him.  I had a piece of – of _who I was_ , who we both were, and it’d be okay.  He’s my best friend, and we could – we’d face the world together, just like we said we would, and everything would be alright.  We’d finally win the war.”

“Steve…”

“But he gave up.”  Christ, it feels pathetic to say that, but he can’t stop himself.  He can’t lie to himself now.  The mantra, the bullshit chant he’s been telling himself his whole life…  He can’t believe it anymore.

So the truth comes out.He can’t hold it back.  He can’t deny it.  He was too afraid feel it before, feel the anger and the grief and the goddamn _helplessness_ , but now there’s no choice.  It’s coming, and it will hurt _._   _It hurts too much.  It hurts too much.  I can’t do this.  I can’t I can’t I can’t–_

“He left me with _nothing._ ”

Thor pulls away.  He cups Steve’s face again.  “If he is the good man you believe him to be, if he is half the good man _you are,_ he did this to protect you.”

Deep down, Steve knows that.  Of course he does.  But it’s so difficult to _accept it_.  He’s spent every waking moment since that moment in the medical bay where he watched Bucky go back into cryostasis trying to wrap his head around it, that Bucky made a choice and that he needs to respect that choice.  And it’s the right choice for Bucky, and Steve can’t resent him for that, no matter how dark and bleak and hopeless the world seems right now.  No matter how much it hurts.

But, God, _it hurts._

He can’t say anything further.  Those cracks are so wide, spreading to the point where his strength is damaged beyond repair.  _Everything_ is damaged beyond repair.  His relationship with Tony.  His opinions of his country.  The team he built.  The _home_ he thought he had.  _Everything._

He just can’t fight anymore.  The world dims, spins slowly in an agonizing circle, and he at long last tips forward and lets himself fall.

Only Thor’s there.  _Thor’s there,_ like he always is.  And Thor catches him, like he always does.  Steve cries into his shoulder, openly sobs, and Thor simply holds him as he shatters.  As he utterly breaks apart, like this is the climax to the drawn-out story they’ve shared.  Thor’s one hand smooths his hair and the other rubs comfortingly up and down his heaving back.  “It’s alright,” he soothes.  “You bore the weight of the world for so long.  All the times I’ve seen you struggle to stay composed, to hold in your pain and ignore it…  You’ve no need to now.  You’ve never needed to with me, Steve.  Never.”  Steve chokes on his breath, and Thor hushes him.  “Grieve.  I have you.”

Steve does.  He grieves.  He hasn’t cried like this in so long, maybe ever.  Throughout his life, he’s always picked himself back up, fought on, forced himself to keep going.  He doesn’t have to now.  As he cries, the tears bleeding from eyes squeezed shut and shaky breaths fleeing him fast, he lets go.  He mourns and hurts and moves on from everything.  The things he’s lost.  What he’s had to do.  The burdens he’s carried.  He can release them.  He shivers and quietly sobs, tightly ensconced in Thor’s arms, and lets it all go.

And for the first time since he dropped the shield, he _feels_ lighter.

When he’s done and all the anguish inside has been spent in tears and trembling, he takes a deep breath.  It’s easier.  The pain’s not gone, not exactly, but it’s quiet.  Tolerable.  He leans back from where he buried his face in Thor’s shoulder.  Thor’s face is open and offering in the darkness.  Steve can’t help but grimace, embarrassed of how he’s acted, but Thor doesn’t even let him get the words out.  “Do not apologize,” he says.  He swipes a thumb tenderly down Steve’s face, wiping away the last of his tears.  “And do not think I find you weak for this.  I could never.  Shield or no shield, you are my captain, and I know how strong you are.”

Steve shakes his head.  He reaches up to take Thor’s hand.  “Thor, I–”

Thor’s suddenly leaning up, and he’s pressing his palm firmer to Steve’s cheek, pulling his face down, _kissing him._   Steve goes absolutely still, shocked out of his mind.  For a second, he can’t think.  He can’t move.  He can’t feel, at least not anything aside from Thor’s callused palm on his face, Thor’s wet lips on his, Thor’s bare skin pressing into his chest, _Thor_ so close. 

Thor’s kissing him.

Then he’s wondering if this is real, if he’s dreaming, if it’s _okay_ because it feels good.  It feels really good.  He hasn’t been kissed – _really_ kissed – since 1945.  Not since Peggy.  And this is Thor, and he never…  He never thought…  He never believed that this could…

_God, it feels so good._

Steve doesn’t realize his eyes have slipped shut until the sweet pressure of the kiss is gone from his mouth and he thinks to open them.  Thor’s right here, still touching his cheek.  He looks concerned like Steve’s never seen him be before, frightened and flustered in a way that doesn’t seem possible for him, opens his mouth to probably apologize himself or make some excuse for being so presumptuous to think that Steve would be okay with this, that Steve would want it–

But Steve does want it.  He wants it so much, like he’s never wanted anything.  Like in this dull, dark, dirty box there’s suddenly light and purpose.  Comfort and warmth and security.  All of the things he’s come to associate with Thor.  He _wants_ that, has wanted it from the beginning only he hasn’t seen it until now.  Maybe Thor’s always seen it.  Maybe that’s why he’s always come to Steve, why he’s always found his way to Steve’s door.  This time and every time before it, every time he’s been _right here…_

How could he have never seen this until now?

It doesn’t matter.  They’re both here, and Steve wants.  The next kiss quiets the pain even more.  So do the ones after that.  Steve runs his fingers through the damp thickness of Thor’s hair, relishing in the little burn of Thor’s beard on his lips and chin.  It’s strange and new and wildly exciting.  Thor kisses him deeper, coaxing his mouth open, but Steve doesn’t need much instruction.  This _need_ inside him, newly freed and vibrant and brilliant, has him desperate.  He’s not sure for what.  He’s never done this.

But that doesn’t matter either.  Thor guides him onto his back on the bed, and he’s crawling over Steve.  He doesn’t break contact for a second, keeping his mouth to Steve’s and his hands on Steve’s chest.  Steve sucks in a breath when Thor pulls his lips away to line wet kisses along Steve’s jaw and down his throat.  “Let me take care of you,” Thor husks against his Adam’s apple.  “I have wanted this for so long.  Since I met you, I knew.  Did you know?”

Steve swallows down his pounding heart and grabs at Thor’s shoulders.  He feels dizzy with how good this is.  The pain’s gone, even as Thor’s weight inadvertently puts pressure on his fresh cuts and bruises.  “Yes.”  He’s sure he did.  On some level, in some way, this connection between them…  “Yes.”

Thor smiles and gives him another kiss, plunging his tongue into Steve’s mouth to explore and possess.  “Then let me take care of you.”

“You always take care of me,” he whispers.  “I should–”

“No,” Thor says with a bit of a devious smile.  Lightning flashes, bathing him in an unearthly glow, and Steve can’t help but think he’s stunning.  “No, Steve.  Let me.”  He kisses him again, and again, _and again,_ and Steve melts into the rough bedding and lumpy pillows and uncomfortable mattress.  As Thor runs his lips down his chest, kissing and sucking and nipping, teasing and tormenting, the world blurs with pleasure.  Idly Steve thinks this isn’t fair.  It’s not fair that it took so long for him to recognize what he has.  It’s not fair that it took all this for him to finally find someone who understands him.  It’s not fair that so much sacrifice is required for even this small touch of relief.

Most of all, it’s not fair that he can’t make Thor feel as loved as Thor has always made him.

Thor’s eyes are closed, like he’s savoring something he’s wanted for a long time and is only now finally getting.  His hands are confident and sure, caressing Steve in a way Steve never imagined they could manage.  All the times Thor’s touched him, it’s _never_ been like this.  Reverent, in a way.  Worshipful.  Slow and purposeful yet inexplicably needy and demanding.  Like there’s no time at all and all the time in the world.  Steve reaches for him, but the second Thor touches him through his boxers, he chokes on a moan and collapses back.  “Oh, God,” he whimpers.  “God…”

Thor looks up at him, clearly seeking permission.  There’s one tiny whisper of doubt – _this isn’t the place or the time and we shouldn’t not here_ – but it’s easily silenced.  Steve nods, and Thor grasps his boxers then and pulls them down.  The warm air feels impossibly strange and chilly again as he’s bared to it, and Steve trembles, staring down at himself and Thor’s face so close to his thigh.  Thor’s hair brushes over Steve’s skin in a tantalizing tickle, and Steve squirms.  “Hush,” Thor softly implores, “and breathe.”

That becomes all but impossible the second Thor touches him.  That strong, capable hand that has aided him in battle, that has dug bullets from his body, that has sewn up the worst of his wounds, that has held him through the worst moments this new world has thrown at him…  That hand wraps around him, and Steve gasps, bucking his hips upward.  Every muscle draws taut, pleasure like lightning surging all over him.  That lightning he’s always thought about before.  It’s trapped no longer, thrumming through every nerve in his body, setting his blood to boil, stealing the air from his lungs and between his lips.

Thor stills him with a kiss.  “Breathe,” he whispers again.

Steve obeys, hauls in a breath, one that’s warm with Thor’s own breath against his lips.  Patiently Thor waits, kissing at his face, kissing away the last of his drying tears.  He stays still until Steve’s relaxed and pliant against the mattress, and only then he begins to stroke him.

An embarrassing whine breaks from Steve’s throat, and he throws an arm around Thor’s shoulder to keep him close.  He _needs_ him close, needs the anchor, because this is too much and not enough, and everything inside is coiled so tightly inside him.  The pleasure’s there, growing and building, arcing over him.  It’s unbearable, just out of reach, and he’s never wanted anything so much as this, never needed it so much–

But Thor does what he always does, what he promised he’d do: he takes care of him.  It’s as if he knows, as if he can feel it too, and he starts to stroke harder, faster, twisting his wrist and squeezing just so.  It’s so intense that it borders on pain, so incredible that it opens floodgates inside him, and he’s rolling his hips into Thor’s, feeling the hard length of Thor’s own arousal pressing against his thigh.  That only heightens his need.  “One day,” Thor whispers into his cheek, “when there’s peace and comfort and we’re far from these troubles, I shall take you to Asgard and spend hours learning you, learning everything you like and teaching you myself in turn.”  Steve groans, hazy eyes flying open only to find Thor’s right there in front of him, staring at him with nothing but devotion and desire.  No one’s ever looked at him like this.  _No one._   “I shall show you the very heights of luxury, of sweet desperation, of pleasure.  I shall show you there can be no distance between us, no doubt as to where we belong.”

_Home._

“And I shall show you how much I love you.”

“Thor…  Thor, I…  Please, please…  I…  _Please…_ ”  He needs to tell him that he knows, _he knows already,_ but he can’t.  He can’t think beyond the pressure of Thor’s hand, the roll of their hips together, the bliss racing through him, the undeniable demand of his release.  There aren’t words to express how he feels, and even if there were, he can’t begin to speak them.

And then he can’t speak at all because Thor’s silencing him with a deep, demanding kiss.  Steve shakes, holding him impossible closer, digging blunt nails into the meat of Thor’s shoulder and holding on so hard.  “Breathe, Steven,” Thor murmurs into his mouth, “and let go.”

There’s no choice.  His release comes with all the power of a storm, and he cries out as it takes him completely.  The world goes white, and he’s pulled away from everything, flying, soaring higher and higher, and for this one euphoric moment, it’s like the pain was never there at all.  He’s free of it.

_Free._

It takes Steve a long time to come back to himself.  He’s falling again, but there’s no pain, no fear.  Thor’s there.  And Thor catches him once more, soothes him back with soft kisses and gentle touches.  As the haze of pleasure recedes, he begins to feel again, the weight of Thor’s body shuddering through the echoes of its own pleasure against his, the tired, lazy press of Thor’s lips to his neck, the sticky wetness on his own stomach and against his thigh, the pliant, laxness of his muscles.  As he lays there and breathes, just _breathes,_ he feels…

_At home._

Thunder rumbles outside.  Lightning flashes, but it’s not as harsh or bright.  Thor sweeps a hand over Steve’s chest, uncaring of the sweat and dirt.  He kisses Steve’s neck again.  “Beautiful.”  The word’s a low rumble, a purr really, and Steve shivers with how good it is.  Of course, he is who he is, and unbidden the denial works its way out of his thoughts and nearly out of his mouth.  Thor senses it and props himself up a bit to look down on Steve.  “Do not demean yourself.  Not ever.  You are beautiful, and you are worthy, and you _deserve_ to feel good.  You deserve love and protection, and it has always been my honor to give it to you.”

“Thor, I…”

“Shhh.”  Thor hushes him again with a soft kiss.  “Don’t think just yet.  Simply feel.”

Steve doesn’t really have it in himself to argue.  He tries to do as he’s told, tries to relish in the last vestiges of fading pleasure.  For a bit, he does.  He lingers, loses himself, lets himself be still.

It’s not enough to keep it all back for long, though.  Once the rush and exhilaration are gone, he’s realizing everything he left behind for those few minutes is still there.  Of course it is.  Tony.  Bucky.  Ross’ men hunting him down.  None of that is going away because of this.

Despite his words earlier, Thor seems to be thinking the same things.  He sighs heavily, sweeping his thumb across the taut skin over Steve’s sternum.  “Come with me.”

The soft plea breaks a long, deep silence.  Steve swallows, pulling himself from his thoughts, and looks down.  “What?”

Thor doesn’t meet his gaze, instead staring out the window at the storm.  The rain’s softly pattering against the glass.  “Come back to Asgard with me.  Come home.”  Steve’s breath locks up in his throat.  He goes still, and Thor nuzzles closer.  The tone of his voice is strange, like he’s suggesting something he _knows_ can’t happen but he’s hoping desperately that Steve will prove him wrong.  When Steve doesn’t say anything, he continues.  “You are more than worthy to live among us.  I have the power to see to that, even if my father finds it disagreeable.  And…  And I meant what I said.  When we find a moment of peace, I–”

“I…  I can’t.”

 The words are still so quiet, but they’re heavy, weighed with grief and disappointment.  Steve feels more than sees Thor close his eyes.  “There is nothing for you here anymore,” he softly says.  It’s not with admonition or disrespect in the slightest.  Again, it’s with hope.  “If Bucky has gone back to sleep, then there’s nothing more you can do for him.  At least not at this time.”  Steve supposes that’s true.  “And if you fear for Sam or those allied with you, I can provide safe refuge for them as well.  There is no reason any of you should have to live like this, in constant fear of capture.  I can provide safe haven for all of you.”  Thor kisses at his pulse point.  “I can take you away with me, and together we can protect the Nine Realms.  You are among the most powerful warriors I have ever known, Steve, not simply in body but in mind and heart.  You do not need your shield to be the guardian you were born to be.”

Hearing that is like a cool balm.  He knows it’s true now.  He doesn’t need to be Captain America to be Steve Rogers.  And he’s always _has been_ Steve Rogers.  Before.  Now.  In Brooklyn and during the war and after waking up in the future and as an Avenger…  That’s constant, no matter where or when he is.  Thor’s shown him that.

And what Thor’s suggesting is undeniably appealing. Leaving behind all this hell, starting something and somewhere new, redefining _who he is_ with Thor at his side…  All the things Thor promised.  Learning about who Thor is even more, his heart and mind and body.  His home.  It’s more alluring that anything Steve’s really considered before.  Freedom and purpose.  Love.  Comfort and security.  _Everything._

But then he thinks of Bucky.  He _will_ wake up.  Once T’Challa’s doctors find a way to help him, he’ll come out of cryosleep and Steve promised he’d be there.  And Sam.  He can’t ask Sam to give up life here like that, not for him, and Sam will follow him anywhere.  And Barton and Lang and Wanda.  All the people who still depend on him, still need him.  People still need him.

 _Tony._   His eyes go to his jacket on the floor, where the phone’s safely in his pocket.  “I can’t,” he says again.  “I want to.  I want to so much.  Never wanted anything like this.”  He kisses Thor’s head, reaching up to take Thor’s hand where it’s over his chest.  “But I can’t.”

Thor sinks.  It’s not much, but Steve can feel it.  Tears sting anew.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.  “Thor, I’m so sorry.”

It’s quiet for a bit.  Thunder’s still grumbling and rumbling, but the rain seems softer.  “You would not be the one I love if you said yes,” Thor eventually declares.  Steve closes his eyes.  “Just swear to me you will not suffer in solitude.”

Steve gives a small grunt.  “Can’t guarantee the solitude part, but suffering…  I’ll be alright.”

Thor lifts his head from his chest.  “Surely you have not become a better liar,” he teases with a sad smile.  There’s wetness in his eyes as well.  It twinkles when the lightning flashes through the room.

Steve reaches up to wipe it away.  “No,” he answers.  “I mean it.  I’ll be alright.”  Then he kisses Thor with everything he has to give.  It doesn’t feel like much, but Thor happily takes it all the same.  They kiss and kiss.  The storm goes on outside, but in this little room, there’s nothing but peace and quiet and contentment.

Early the next morning, Thor is gone.  He leaves while Steve is still sleeping, but Steve faintly remembers a kiss on his hair, on his brow, on his lips.  A whisper in his ear.  _“Be safe, beloved.”_  

He will be.  He gets up.  Washes off.  Looks over the injuries from yesterday and finds they’re already well on the way to healing.  Gets dressed.  Gathers his things and himself and runs on through the city, gun in his backpack and phone in his pocket.  Though he’s alone, the storm’s gone, and the day’s brighter.  The world seems _better_ , this world that’s still not his. It may never be his.

That’s okay.  It doesn’t need to be his for him to protect it.

* * *

_And reversal_

The house is nice enough.  It sits on a bluff that overlooks the English Channel.  It’s just outside a little French town, nothing more than a quaint village, and the landscape is incredible, sloping and verdant and beautiful.  In 1944, just after D-Day, the Howling Commandos stayed in a place like this for a few days between operations.  It wasn’t this exact town, but it was somewhere like it, a quiet, tiny corner of the world that was miraculously unscathed by the war, by all the chaos and violence and destruction spreading around it.  Just remote and secluded enough to be one step away from the middle of nowhere.

That suits Steve just fine.  He got this place through Dernier’s daughter, a sweet old woman who owns more land than she can tend and who grew up listening to stories about Captain America.  They took care to keep the connection obscured, so Steve living here shouldn’t be traceable.  Only a few hundred people reside in the village and surrounding area, and no one asks questions.  His French is excellent, and with the beard he’s grown and the longer hair, it’s a good enough disguise.  Besides, no one would expect a vigilante superhero to be living in the little house on the hill overlooking the sea.  Captain America is off the grid and has been for more than a year.

And for more than a year, he’s made this place work.  It’s no great shakes, but the little house is homey and more than enough space for just him.  He’s also not here all the time.  With Sam, Natasha, and Sharon Carter, he’s gone rogue effectively.  He dyed his combat suit black.  Pulled the American flag and all the Avengers insignia off it as much as possible.  Between that, the beard, and the different hair, he doesn’t look like Captain America much.  Not having the shield helps with the dissociation as well.  _Nomad._   Sam called him that once a few months back.  He meant it as a joke, but the name’s stuck with Steve.  _No country.  No home.  No place to call my own._   He’s not as bitter about it as he could be.

At any rate, Sharon’s got intel connections that help their little group stay on top of the world’s terrorists, dictators, and other threats of that nature.  They don’t have the resources to do everything they could (as in hardly any resources at all), but between the four of them they’re stopping some threats before they can really manifest themselves.  Making a small difference.  It’s good to do that, even if it is a little risky for him.  He’s pretty sure that Ross has given up the active hunt at least.  Sharon’s said as much from what she can glean from her contacts in the State Department.  Steve doesn’t harbor any illusions; he’s pretty sure Tony can find him if he wants.  What they’re doing is obvious to anyone who knows him, and Tony knows him all too well.  A single person taking out an entire company of illegal arms dealers on the verge of acquiring WMDs in Iran without a single casualty has Steve’s fingerprints all over it, for example.  And there are tons more.  Everything move he makes has got to be a beacon for Tony, a flashing light that’s impossible to ignore.

But Tony’s leading the Avengers, Vision and Rhodey and that Spiderman kid and a few others, and he hasn’t made any move to interfere with what Steve’s been doing.  They’re handling their end of things just fine.  Sharon and Natasha keep Steve abreast of what’s been going on when the news doesn’t come his way fast enough.  Steve’s satisfied with that.  Saying he’s made peace with what’s happened is a bit of a stretch, but the guilt, anger, and sense of betrayal don’t haunt him so acutely anymore.  Someday he knows he and Tony will have to address what happened.  They’ll meet again, and when they do, all of this unsettled misery will have to be resolved.  For now, Steve keeps the phone charged just in case.

Things are stable, and stability feels good.  He can live with this.  He’s lonely, no doubt about it.  He’s been scarred by what’s happened.  There’s no doubt about that, either.  It’s been harder for him to maintain some optimism that the world’s fundamentally a decent place, but he does.  It’s also hard to be so far from Bucky.  T’Challa sends him weekly updates about Bucky’s status.  They’re far more than template of a report, too.  The king himself takes the time to write them.  They’re rarely more than an assurance that all is well, that Bucky’s safe and stable while Wakanda’s brightest minds work to save him.  That’s all there is, all that can be, and so it’s enough for Steve right now.  He thinks about Bucky every day, hopes and prays he’s sleeping deeply enough to find some peace at least from the damage done to him.

And he thinks about Thor.  He does almost constantly.  He has no way to get in contact with him, no way to know where he is or what’s happening to him or if he’s even safe.  When Steve first came here, he didn’t worry so much.  Thor didn’t say he would be back when he left Steve in Africa, but Steve always assumes he meant to.  After all, Thor’s always come back before.  Steve was so busy at the time too, adjusting to his new life, trying to find his footing, that he didn’t think so much about Thor in any context other than missing him and hoping to see him soon.

Then the days started to pile up.  Many, _many_ days.  Steve’s tried not to lose himself in concern.  Thor’s been gone for extended periods in the past.  Perhaps he became engrossed in some pressing matter back on Asgard.  Even though he claims to have renounced his role as prince, Steve’s not sure that’s something someone can just shirk and ignore.  Maybe he’s simply been busy with that.  What the hell does Steve know about running a kingdom, about ruling a race of people who are for all intents and purposes gods?  He can’t imagine how time-consuming protecting the Nine Realms may be.  Handling _one_ realm is all but impossible, and it’s cost him an awful lot.

Plus Thor’s a demigod, for crying out loud.  Steve tells himself that all the time.  Thor’s immortal, a seasoned, veteran warrior, and he can take care of himself.  He’s proven that so many times in the past.  Hell, he’s lived for a thousand years before Steve even met him.  This time they’ve spent together, however special and precious it feels, is a blink in Thor’s lifespan.  Thor knows what he’s doing, knows how to handle what comes his way.

Still, Steve thinks of that threat that had Thor so riled after his mother’s death, the one that was exacerbated by the Ultron incident.  And he keeps worrying.  He’s alone with his thoughts for days on end, so there’s no escaping his doubts and fears and misgivings.  He thinks with such utter longing about the things they’ve shared, how Thor came to him _every time_ he needed it.  Their fast friendship.  Their trust and devotion.  The strength and security Thor always symbolizes.  And that night they spent together…  That haunts him most of all, more than anything else ever has.  Steve lays in his bed in the dark and dreams of it every night like some sort of ritual punishment.  He dreams of Thor’s hands on him, of Thor’s kiss and Thor’s weight against his body.  All the things he wants to say, the way he wants to touch him, the way he wants to love him…  It’s a torment all its own, this need twisting him up inside.  A year is a long time to suffer with that, to try and keep that appeased.  It’s driving him crazy, but there’s nothing he can do aside from dream, wait, and hope.

So he does, and he tries not to think about much else.  He lives frugally.  Cooks and cleans and goes about his business quietly and keeps a low-profile.  He fights when Sam calls him.  He makes as much as he can of this life he has now without the detachment and pain he used to have.  He made a promise to Thor not to suffer in solitude.  He made a promise to himself not to give up.  And he knows Thor will contact him if something’s wrong.  He knows it.  He puts his faith in that.  He has to.

Despite that, though, he’s still surprised when Thor finally does return.

It’s a cool, gray evening, late in autumn when the colors are long past their prime.  Steve’s dumping the last of his vegetables into his simmering pot of soup when he feels it.  It’s a little tickle across his skin, almost an electrical caress, and the tiny hairs on his arms are rising as the sensation intensifies.  Suddenly he’s certain there’s someone there.  There’s a second of fear of course; living on the run as long as he has lends itself to certain uncontrollable reactions.  But the fear doesn’t last long, because he just…  He _knows._

He’s running to the door before there’s even a knock, yanking it open without even glancing out the windows to be sure.  He is sure.  _It’s Thor.  It’s Thor!_

But this person at his door looks nothing like Thor.  It _is_ him, but the change is so severe that Steve doesn’t believe his eyes for a moment.  His mouth falls open, limp with shock, and he stares stupidly.  “Thor…”

Thor’s got a cloak on, but it doesn’t hide much.  His hair’s been cut short, which in and of itself is a huge difference.  His face his dirty, bruised, burned.  His clothes look tattered, and his skin is similarly covered in soot and grime.  He’s bent in a way Steve’s never seen, like it hurts him too terribly to stand straight.

Most horrifying of all, though…  His right eye is gone.  There’s a charred hole where it once was.  Steve shakes his head, unable to look too closely, unable to _fathom_ this.  “Oh, God…  Holy hell…  Thor…”

“Steve,” Thor whispers, shivering.  He looks ready to collapse.

Steve doesn’t waste a second.  He grabs Thor, gets his arms around him, gets Thor in his little place and the door securely shut and locked.  Thor seems so small, quaking so violently, and Steve hauls him close.  “Are you okay?” he gasps, rubbing Thor’s arms carefully.  “Are you?”

Thor doesn’t seem capable of speaking for a moment, instead sinking into Steve’s embrace.  When he finally does, his voice is a shadow of its normal strength.  “It’s…  It’s all gone.”

“What is?”  There’s no response.  Thor has his face pressed into Steve’s shoulder, and he’s breathing raggedly.  All his weight’s practically on Steve, but Steve doesn’t buckle, doesn’t falter despite that and the fear pulsing through him.  He carefully maneuvers them to the house’s living space, where he's got a fire roaring in the hearth to combat the chill.  Once he’s there, he eases Thor down onto his one and only couch.  “What?” he gasps, kneeling in front of the other man and gathering his hands.  “Thor, what’s gone?”

There are tears in Thor’s good eye, tears that streak through the filth on his face.  It takes him another moment to compose himself enough to answer.  “Asgard.”

 _Asgard… gone._   It doesn’t seem possible.  The silence that follows is devastating, and Steve’s reeling.  _Asgard’s gone._   All those sweet promises Thor made, all the grand, proud talk of his mighty homeland…  Even without ever seeing the Aesir’s world, _this_ world suddenly seems different.  “What happened?” Steve finally whispers, shaking his head and forcing himself to focus.

Thor closes his eye.  “Ragnarok.”

The word doesn’t mean much to Steve.  He vaguely recalls that years ago, when he and Thor first started to become friends, he encountered Ragnarok during some reading he did on Asgard.  It’s a prophecy of some sort.  _The destruction of the world._   Steve pulls in a breath, looking back at Thor.  All the misgivings, the foreboding Thor’s suffered with all this time…  It’s all come true.  “How?”

Thor turns away, suddenly tensing with anguish.  “It matters not.  I failed,” he says lowly.  “I failed!” He sags into the couch.  As broken and defeated as he is, he doesn’t seem capable of moving.

Steve is, though.  And Steve does.  The shock recedes enough for him to think, to function, and he’s whispering for Thor to say where is he before getting up and running to the kitchen.  He grabs a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator and gets a bowl of steaming water from the sink.  Then he’s barreling upstairs, to his tiny bedroom and the bathroom attached to it.  There’s an extensive first aid kit there, one he uses on himself when their little skirmishes go awry.  He takes that, some clean towels, and a change of clothes.

Back in the living room, Thor’s still slumped on the couch.  Steve rushes back with his things and kneels on the floor in front of him.  “Thor?” he calls softly, setting his hand on Thor’s leg.  “Here.  Drink this.”  He offers an open water bottle.  Thor makes no move to take it.  Steve rubs his knee.  “Thor, are you with me?”

Thor doesn’t answer.  He seems totally out of it, deeply set into shock.  Steve bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes the bitter tang of blood.  “Here, let me help you.”  He leans up and tips the bottle of water gently to Thor’s mouth.  That seems to jostle Thor from his daze, and he reaches up to grasp Steve’s hand and the bottle.  He doesn’t pull it away, drinking greedily as though once the clean taste of the water’s struck his tongue, he can’t stop.  He seems steadier after a few massive gulps, so Steve gets him another bottle and looks him over.  He’s battered, bloody, and burned.  “Who did this to you?”

Thor lowers the bottle and gives a tortured chuckle.  “My sister.”

Steve’s eyes go wide.  “You have a sister?”

“Apparently,” Thor says.  His voice is twisted in pain, and he’s shaking again, brittle and burdened.  Steve watches helplessly.  “And apparently treachery runs in our blood.  She tried to take Asgard so that she could rule the Nine Realms with cruelty and malice.  I destroyed it to keep it from her.”

Steve doesn’t understand.  He has a feeling there’s nothing Thor can tell him to make this clear.  There are thousands of years, eons in fact, of history leading up to this point, magic and might and legends, and he doesn’t know what to say.  The question that comes out is relevant at least.  “If Asgard’s…  How are you here?”

“The last of our power,” Thor mutters.  “Magics brought out of the vault before the city was destroyed.  I…  I thought to come and seek help, but I realized there’s no help that can be sought.”  He gives another wry, rueful smile that only speaks of pain, of frustration and insanity.  “There’s nothing that can undo the destruction of a world.”

“Thor–”

“It’s all gone,” Thor says again, as though he can’t think about anything beyond that.  His eye is glazed, distant, consumed with pain and grief.  More tears slip down his face.  “The city…  The palace.  The places where Loki and I played as children, where Mother sang to us, where Father…  Father is dead, too.”  Steve grimaces, ducking his face to hide it.  _Jesus._ He opens the first aid kit and pulls out bandages, a suture set, sterile wipes…  Everything he has.  It’s not going to be enough.

Still, he dunks a cloth into the warm water and takes Thor’s hand.  The knuckles there are bruised and scraped raw.  Tenderly he wipes the grime away.  Thor shudders, though whether it’s from the pain, Steve’s touch, or the memories clearly brutalizing him, Steve can’t say.  Nevertheless Thor goes on.  “I learned things…  Things I never thought possible.  I feared before that he was not who I thought, and I do not know now…  I don’t know the sort of man he was.  The lies he told.  He built a kingdom on them.  He destroyed a family with them.”

“What?” Steve whispers, horrified.

Thor squeezes his eye shut.  “I was right to be afraid of that.”

Steve still doesn’t know what to say.  _Sorry_ seems so inadequate, so useless, so instead he focuses on washing.  Carefully he wipes the wet cloth over Thor’s hands until they’re mostly clean.  Then he moves up and pushes the cloak off Thor’s shoulders.  The fabric falls away, and the hood slips back, and Thor’s haggard, battered appearance only becomes sharper and more distressing.  Steve only takes a deep breath and goes on, rinsing the cloth and taking it to his face.  God, his face.  The wounds around his missing eye…  They’re much more pronounced now in the flickering light of the fire.  It’s brutal, what was done to him.  Steve’s heart breaks.  He’s tender as he washes Thor’s unhurt side.  Thor winces, clearly in pain.  Despite it all, the words finally come out.  “I’m sorry.”

Thor doesn’t seem to hear him.  “Even Mjölnir,” he whispers.  He grips Steve’s hand where he’s wiping carefully at a blood-crusted cut on his brow.  “Even that is gone.  Destroyed.  Taken from me.”

Steve startles.  That’s not possible.  That’s not…  “No,” he whispers.

Thor nods, sinking more into the couch and releasing Steve’s arm.  “I told them I was going to find help, that I would return with something to sustain us, to save us.  What few of us there are left.  But I am a selfish fool, and the only thing I could think to do was come to you.”  Steve aches and touches Thor’s face anew.  Thor’s hand comes right back to grab his, and he shakes, groans, sobs.  It’s even more pained and anguished, laden with despair.  “I am a king, Steve.  A king of a people who’ve been slaughtered, who have no hope.  A king with no weapons, with no way of protecting anything or anyone.  A king with no kingdom.  I have…”  The tears come.  “I have nothing.”

For a long moment, Steve stares at Thor.  Thor, who’s always been there for him, who’s seen him through the worst of his pain in this dark and violent world, who’s been at his side every time he’s needed him, who’s cared for him, soothed his soul and tended his injuries, who’s _loved_ him…  Once, years ago, he promised Thor that he would do the same for him, should the need ever arise.  He promised that he’d be what Thor needed at a moment like this.  And the responsibility, the duty to this man about whom he cares so much, the need to _help_ , is overwhelming.

The damn circular logic takes him right back.  What _can_ he do, though?  He’s here, in hiding, hunted by his own government.  He’s on the run from the people he once trusted.  He has no money, no power, no capacity to render even a modest amount of aid.  He’s not even Captain America anymore, and even if he was…  What can a mere man do against gods and monsters like these?

As Thor stares at him, though, broken and pleading, he realizes the truth.  The answer’s the same as it always has been.  The fact that he can’t fix this doesn’t matter.  The evil looming in the shadows, the threats against them…  They’ll always be there.  No matter how hard they fight, no matter how tall they stand or long they persevere, the war goes on and on.  And the pain isn’t going to end.  Not once could Thor fix any of those dark moments through which Steve suffered, and Steve never expected him to.  There is no way to fix it.  This is who they are, soldiers and warriors and Avengers, captains and kings, and suffering goes hand in hand with that.

But there’s no need to suffer alone.  There never has been.  With soft certainty inside, Steve cups Thor’s face and lifts it.  “You have me.”  He offers a soft, loving smile when Thor’s eyes meet his.  “And I’m going to take care of you.”

Thor blinks, freeing more tears, and Steve doesn’t look away.  He smiles even more, sweeping his thumb over Thor’s cheek, and slowly the pain that’s throbbing and pulsing and demanding its due…  It quiets.  It quiets as it always has and always will.  Gently Steve draws him closer, and Thor leans forward, and they kiss.  It’s calm, powerful, full of love and devotion.  Warmth and solace.  Certainty. 

They part.  Steve pulls off Thor’s ruined clothes and tends to him.  Carefully, reverently, he washes away the stale sweat, the soot from a city that burned, the blood from the wounds he suffered.  He rubs salves into the injuries, praying his tender touch doesn’t cause more hurt.  It doesn’t.  Thor watches as Steve works, and he’s peaceful.  Peaceful and calm.  Sinking into the comfort.  Steve wraps bandages around the worst of the wounds, taking care to tie them well but not too tight.  The last place he covers is Thor’s damaged face, right over his ruined eye.  He loops gauze around Thor’s head, smiling softly and encouragingly at Thor as he does.  Thor stares back at him, anchors onto him, and the connection between them feels alive and unbreakable.  It is.  _Alive and unbreakable._

Eventually the fire burns low.  They lay on the couch that’s yet again too small, Thor on Steve’s chest, Steve’s hands threading through his short hair and caressing down his bare back.  The embers crackle quietly, and the world is calm.  They don’t speak.  They don’t have to.  They both know that tomorrow everything will go on, these difficult lives they’re living.  They’ll fight again, be hurt again, face whatever pain awaits them.

But that’s alright.  It has been one slow, difficult step after another, but it’s been toward one another.  They’re okay.  They’re together.  They have each other.

And as long as they have that, they’re home.

 

**THE END**


End file.
